


The Inconvenient Wife

by blythechild



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Childhood Friends, Denial of Feelings, Duty, Everything is consensual, Families of Choice, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Guilt, Loyalty, Miscarriage, Misunderstandings, Modern Royalty, Mpreg, Multi, NOT OMEGAVERSE, Not Canon Compliant, Past Abuse, Polyamory, Pregnancy, Secret Identity, Secret Relationship, Sexual Content, Veiled Sex, make it work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 03:47:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 67,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28298484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blythechild/pseuds/blythechild
Summary: Spencer is a 30-year-old, bachelor king facing threats from rival kingdoms and increasing pressure to marry and produce an heir for stability. He agrees to an arranged marriage despite his longstanding affair with his childhood friend, Aaron, captain of the royal guard. He knows his spouse will be veiled and her identity embargoed from him until she conceives, as is the custom. But he doesn't expect to be drawn to his silent, identity-less wife the way he is. He becomes torn between the faithful, indispensable friend he secretly adores and the mysterious woman who silently turns his heart. But she has secrets too, and they might cause the downfall of his threatened kingdom...This is a work of fanfiction, and as such I do not claim ownership over the characters herein. It was created as a personal amusement. This story contains sex, violence, and adult themes. It should not be read by those under the age of 18.
Relationships: Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid, Emily Prentiss/Spencer Reid
Comments: 72
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is inspired by the AU world created in [Unveiled by Mad_Lori](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20922587/chapters/49738697) (different fandom, different pairing) in which both men and women can impregnate and gestate. Like her, I won't go into the details of how this is physiologically possible ('cause I have no clue). All you need to know is that men and women exist, they can both inseminate and birth babies, and gender prejudice isn't really a thing. _Class prejudice_ , on the other hand...
> 
> Also, please pay attention to all of the relationship pairings and tags. Spencer is polyamorous in this so both Spencer/Aaron and Spencer/Emily are primary pairings in this story. If that's not to your tastes, this story isn't for you, and please don't feel the need to inform me. There is also an mpreg tag on this story, but it will merely be referenced in passing (also, this isn't an Omegaverse A/B/O fic, in case you were wondering).
> 
> Finally, this is a modern royalty AU and bears no resemblance to canon. No one is in the FBI and there will be no case shenanigans. I have borrowed some characters from the show, but that's it.
> 
> Updates will happen as fast (or slow) as I can scribble them ;)

They were racing the night. Dawn would come soon and irrevocably change this blanketed refuge on them, and they both knew it. Aaron held him tighter, a hand finding his as they strained together and lacing their fingers. He fought the strange mix of signals his body was sending him: the dark, tight coil of pleasure that held him on the edge until the moment he lost his footing, and the pervasive well of grief expanding in his chest. The grief was predictable – a mile marker on the road they were on together and one that surprised neither of them. And it was also pointless, hysterical. Aaron wasn’t leaving, after all; Aaron could never leave. But they’d never be _this_ again.

“Aaron…”

The sound choked off and Aaron saw tears on his face in the dim light as he swayed into him again and again, getting lost and out of control. His other hand rose from their rolling hips and brushed the damp hair from his face. It made him focus on Aaron – those huge eyes glazed from lust, and bloodshot from the anger he’d unleashed earlier. The anger that he’d only let his best friend see. Aaron swallowed down the spreading chill behind his ribs and forced a smile.

“S’okay,” he whispered.

“It isn’t,” was the gasped reply.

“It has to be,” he concluded.

Then Aaron wrestled him close, locking his thighs over his hips and leaning hard into the thrusts, giving up that last inch of himself to the only person who knew how to draw it out of him. He sank down into the mourning, and the love. He let it wash over him like rushing water. Perhaps he hoped he’d drown before it ended, and he’d never have to know a second beyond this one. He came suddenly and fully, without lead up and with damp trails on his face that he wiped away on the heated skin pressed against him. He let himself be carried away by it once more, gasping as rangy muscles flexed, and long limbs slid and adjusted in the sheets, and the taste of another’s sweat consumed him. Aaron curled around him when he came, holding him so close – too close – when his name stuttered out on a sob to accompany it. Then they collapsed together, loose and sticky, gripping each other with white-tipped tenacity and loud, rasped breaths.

Then the kissing happened and wouldn’t be stopped. Lips, cheeks, sweaty temples, tangled hair, tense muscles, pecs, fingertips, palms, wrists… on and on and on until Aaron felt certain he’d break completely and never find enough of his pieces to be rebuilt.

“No more,” he growled wetly, and used all of his strength to gently push himself away. The light beneath the drapes was already turning purple. They were out of time.

Spencer didn’t object, didn’t put up a fight. He just rolled to his side of the bed and acknowledged the statement with a silent, hurt stare. That was far worse than any fight. Aaron watched him for a series of long, stuttered breaths, and then he shuffled in the sheets, sitting up and organizing his departure for the day. There were a lot of details he had to see to.

“Don’t-” Spencer started.

“It’s best to get on with it, Spence,” he sighed, refusing to look at him and stepping into his pants.

“I _hate_ this!” Spencer growled viciously to himself. Aaron leaned his head back and stared at the bedroom ceiling. He let out a long, low sigh.

“We always knew this would happen, you and I,” he whispered to the ceiling. “We’ve known it since we were kids.”

“That doesn’t make it any less frustrating,” Spencer bit out. “Or backward. Or insulting to everyone involved.”

“It’s the tradition of your station, Spencer…”

“We aren’t prized show animals,” he snapped. “I don’t even know her, and I’m already enraged that she’s being treated like a broodmare.”

He held his breath as Aaron shrugged into his uniform. Aaron could feel it.

“And it dismisses you utterly,” Spencer gulped behind him. Aaron straightened his shoulders and ran a hand down the front of his captain’s jacket to smooth away the creases. Finally, he turned to face him.

“I know my duty, and I will not waiver in it.”

Spencer’s expression collapsed as he shuffled in the tossed sheets. “You don’t have to be there today. It’s purely ceremonial – there will be no danger.”

Aaron’s eyebrows lowered. “My place is by your side. Always, Your Majesty.”

“Don’t do that,” Spencer pointed at him as anger clouded his grief briefly. “Don’t pull rank like that. As if I’ve ever seen you as less than an equal. _Ever._ ”

Aaron huffed. “Fine. But I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it.”

“But you don’t need to be there _in the room_ …” Spencer’s cheeks colored, and his eyes flicked around nervously.

“When you consummate,” Aaron added flatly. 

“Christ…” Spencer muttered and looked miserable. He refused to look at Aaron, who stood there obediently like a statue. “Don’t make me dishonor you _both._ I can’t do anything for her but… I can spare you.”

Aaron huffed again and then knelt onto the bed, collecting Spencer’s hands into his and squeezing them until he glanced back. And then Aaron forced another smile on him.

“Listen. This is an awkward, ridiculous tradition, and you just have to get through it, okay? I’m sure she feels the same way.”

“I wish I knew that for sure…” he mumbled.

“I know you do,” Aaron said softly, heart aching for how much Spencer was worrying about a person he’d yet to meet. “And maybe there’s a way to get that across to her. Without breaking the embargo.”

“How?” Spencer’s forehead creased. “What hand gesture do you use to plumb the depths of a stranger’s thoughts on being ceremonially raped in front of an audience? And on top of that, how do you make that gesture SECRET so that no one overseeing this… forced breeding… has any idea that you are breaking the law and communicating with this stranger?”

Spencer’s voice got high and tense, and Aaron shuffled closer, circling his thumbs into pressure points on his hands to calm him.

“Well… you still want me to try, don’t you? With the plan we discussed?” Aaron asked softly. It was a good plan, but he didn’t know what would happen if he got the wrong answer. How would that work? Would the whole thing just be called off?

Spencer nodded vigorously, almost in desperation. “Yes, absolutely. It’s the only way I can convince myself to go through with this. As it is, I’m still not confident that I can, ummm, perform for an audience.”

“You’ll find a way,” Aaron whispered, looking down at their hands, then slowly drawing his away. “You know your duty as I know mine. Just focus on what needs to happen. Give the kingdom an heir. As soon as possible. Then unveil your wife to the world and… then you’ll both figure out what happens next.”

Silence fell over them for a time. Then…

“What if she hates me?” His voice was small.

Aaron sighed and got up, finding his cap and brushing it absently. “It’s an arranged marriage. Once you produce a child, neither one of you has to see each other again if you so choose. No one expects you to… love each other. Or even remain faithful, after the child arrives, of course.”

“That’s all…” His voice abandoned him. When Aaron looked back, Spencer was staring numbly at a spot on the carpet. “What a waste.”

Aaron took his time staring at the profile of the man he’d grown up beside, who he’d sworn his life to defend, long before there was anything other than duty in his heart.

“That’s the price of your kingdom, Your Majesty,” Aaron said, and Spencer finally looked at him, his features steeling to the responsibility made into a reality this day. “And you will succeed excellently, as you have in all of your royal responsibilities. Of that, I have absolute faith.”

“We didn’t have enough time, Aaron,” Spencer said with that look of steel, but his voice soft and familiar. Aaron staggered back a step, not expecting that blow.

“We had what we were given,” he swallowed thickly. “It was more than most.” He straightened again, and put on his cap, looking every inch like the Royal Guard Captain. “And I will be with you through everything, as is my oath.”

A smile flickered over Spencer and then was lost to duty, worry, and obligation. “Yes, Captain, I have absolute faith in you as well.”

He rose from the bed and turned towards his dressing chamber, walking away naked and purposeful. Aaron thought that if this was the last glance he was permitted of ‘his’ Spencer, it was a fine one, revealing both his vulnerability and his quiet, ferocious capability at once.

“If you come across my tailor out there in the halls, Captain, tell him I’m up and ready to begin.”


	2. Chapter 2

The wedding itself was quick and perfunctory, mostly due to the embargo that existed between the nuptial couple. The consort was veiled to obscure her identity and would remain veiled until she conceived, and her pregnancy was beyond the tumultuous first trimester. They were forbidden to speak to one another or reveal anything of themselves beyond what was necessary in order to conceive a child. The couple was also unable to research each other beyond the opaque biographies exchanged between royal families; Spencer was even forbidden from knowing her name. He’d had little input in selecting his royal consort and had to rely on his mother’s good judgment and the knowledge that she treasured him so dearly as to select a future partner who wouldn’t be anathema to his beliefs and plans for his kingdom. He hoped for someone with intelligence and a love of learning similar to his, and someone who looked upon motherhood as more than just a duty. He wanted his child to be loved, no matter the circumstances of his or her birth. And beyond that, he didn’t dare to fix further restrictions on this mystery woman. He didn’t care if she was a beauty or not, or if she were tall or short, dark or light, or if she enjoyed him – all he wanted was someone he could admire, and perhaps, she’d come to admire him in return in time.

One of the few choices he was permitted was gender. His mother asked him point blank, “Woman or man?”, and that’s when he knew _she knew_ about Aaron. Since both men and women could impregnate, conceive, and give birth, he had options. Either way he went, there would be critics decrying his choice, so it was actually of no political relevance whatsoever. He’d decided on a woman, and surprised both his mother and Aaron in the process. His justification was, “I like wine but am not fussy about the bottle”, but later he confessed to Aaron that he’d never be able to fuck another man, not with his infallible memory of Aaron haunting him.

So, all he knew of his wife was that she was from a wealthy, titled kingdom to the east, that she’d been known there for her active involvement in civil works to improve the lives of her people, and that she’d been picky about the consort offers she received. His mother told him she’d turned more than her fair share down.

“She must be alluring,” Diana twinkled, trying to get him interested. “So many suitors…”

“Or maybe she doesn’t like people, Mom,” he mumbled into his coffee and flipped the page of his daily report in their sunny dining room. “She gets a say in this too, you know.”

“Well, she chose you, Spencer. Maybe that says something about her.” Diana’s hand slid across the table linen until she clasped his, making him look at her curiously. “And she will love you as well, my darling. Once she’s unveiled, she’ll know you, and she’ll love you for the gentle, principled man you are.”

“It’ll be a bit late by then to convince her of my character…”

His face heated; his mother’s vision of him was unnecessarily rosy. It always had been, even when his late father complained that she was puffing him up too much for his own good. Fortunately, King William hadn’t stuck around long enough to ensure his son’s neuroses flowered into something more crippling; he died when Spencer was eight and was rarely mentioned either inside or outside the palace walls. A forgettable king. Spencer was determined to do better. Part of doing better had been voraciously pursuing education, and then enacting sometimes unwelcome advances in law, science, and finance that would benefit his people _decades_ from now. And, of course, getting married and providing an heir was part of his responsibility as well, though he put it off for nearly twelve years, until the general cry of the public began to question if he could even father a child. Was he getting too old? Thirty was hardly ‘old’, he reminded people, but still, in royal procreation terms, he was a little late to the party.

So, he agreed to marry, knowing that peerage matches were _only_ veiled and embargoed – never a love courting like commoners – and hoped for the best. His mother reminded him, “it’s for the people… think of your people”, and he made an off-color remark that he didn’t think getting an erection for the people was what they really wanted. Diana had told him off soundly while Aaron stood ramrod straight in the corner and turned red from the effort it took not to laugh.

And that led them here: to his wedding day. He’d taken her hand through an opaque screen and silently nodded his acceptance of the vows as she, presumably, did the same on the other side, knowing nothing more about her than she seemed well-versed in her duty as a princess, and that her hand was warm and steady under his. Then they were both whisked away to prepare for the public consummation ceremony. ‘Public’ was an odd description for it – it wasn’t – but it would be viewed by a handful of carefully-selected officials and relatives to ensure everything went off, so to speak. And again, he would see almost nothing of her – just a hole in a sheet draped between them. He was beginning to panic about it.

“You’re not going to throw up, are you?” Aaron glanced up from where he was adjusting the ceremonial outfit Spencer was to wear for this ridiculousless. “Please warn me if you’re going to do that.”

“I’m not going to throw up,” Spencer hissed, but he wasn’t sure.

“Well, you have a history with that, so…”

“I do _not._ ”

Aaron smirked at him as he rose to his feet. “2009. Maeve Donovan. It was spectacularly gross. I know you haven’t forgotten it. I’m sure she hasn’t either.”

“Shut up,” he grumbled, feeling green. “I’d had two bottles of wine beforehand. And YOU got me drunk so, it’s sorta on you, you know.”

Spencer shot him a look that made Aaron chuckle, and then it melted into nervous fussing with his clothes again.

“You’re supposed to be helping,” Spencer murmured. “Why aren’t you helping?”

“Sorry. I thought lightening the mood _was_ helping.”

“By invoking the barf-sex story? I’m having a hard enough time trying to stay focused on getting it up in front of a judges panel and _a sheet._ ” He sighed. “At least Maeve knew me and gave me a second chance. Jesus, please don’t let me barf…”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry. This turned out to be a terrible idea on my part.” Aaron soothed his hands along Spencer’s arms. “Try to calm yourself. It’ll be over soon enough, and then the pervy display part of this will be behind everyone. After that, it’s just you and her, and the respective guard details.”

Spencer’s gaze flicked to Aaron and held it. “Don’t come into the consummation room. Please,” he whispered.

Aaron’s hands fell away from Spencer. “If… if that’s what your orders are…”

“Don’t make me order you.”

Aaron tightened his mouth and nodded. Nothing more.

“Will you… will you still carry out the plan?” Spencer asked. Aaron looked up, expression flat and tone even flatter.

“I’ll go now,” he nodded, and left the preparation room.

\---- 

Aaron moved quickly through the palace and arrived at the consummation room that he’d just promised Spencer he wouldn’t enter. The observer panel was set up, and presumably the chosen were already seated behind the privacy screen. The consort was also present, behind the opaque sheet with the strategic hole that Aaron refused to look at. Her personal guards flanked her area of the room, and somewhere beyond them were her parents, just as Queen Diana was stationed somewhere behind Aaron on Spencer’s side of the room. He sighed as he quickly crossed the floor, silently wishing Spencer luck in this situation which seemed designed exclusively to humiliate. 

One of the consort’s guards saw him coming and blocked his path.

“His Majesty has a condition to be met before the ceremony begins,” Aaron spoke loudly and confidently. “I am to ask the consort a question.”

“We were not informed,” the guard bristled.

“I apologize for the oversight.”

“This is highly irregular.”

Aaron saw the sheet ripple from the corner of his eye when the consort shifted slightly.

“It has been approved by the clerics,” Aaron intoned. The guard grimaced and then shifted his head to the right to look at the consort. Aaron was on the opposite side of the sheet and could see nothing of her. The guard’s grimace grew deeper at whatever answer he received, and then he turned back to Aaron.

“Very well, but you remain where you are. You are not permitted to look upon her.”

“Understood.” Aaron waited a beat, and then clasped his hands behind his back in a gesture of deference, even if she couldn’t see it. “M’lady, His Majesty wishes to ask a single question of you. He is not in the chamber, so you may speak your answer. Will you permit me to ask this question in his stead?”

There was a beat of silence, and then a hesitant, “yes”.

“Thank you,” Aaron nodded, and then took a deep breath. “He asks if you are here willingly to consummate with him?”

There was a painful silence in the room, even the consort’s guards seemed to tense up. Aaron bent at the waist and leaned closer to the sheet.

“M’lady… he worries on this point. Your free and full agreement is important to him, and since he does not know your mind in this matter-”

“The embargo, Captain,” the consort’s guard interrupted harshly. “There will be no communication between the Royal Couple during-”

“Stop,” a higher voice commanded from behind the screen. It was a voice used to being obeyed. “Allow him to finish, Anderson.”

“Yes, My Lady.” Anderson stood straighter.

“Go ahead, Captain, finish your thought.”

Aaron blinked, and then got on with it, still bent at the waist. 

“M’lady, His Majesty wishes to make it clear that if you have entered this agreement against your will, you need only say the word and he will refuse to finish this ceremony. He will back away from this whole endeavor, without prejudice or acrimony. He will not proceed without an understanding of… harmony between you.”

There was another ripple in the sheet.

“Tell His Majesty that I am here willingly, Captain.” Aaron straightened his back, and then her voice sounded again, though less authoritative this time. “Tell him… not to worry.”

“M’lady…” her guard warned.

Aaron hid a smirk. “I will pass that along. Thank you, m’lady.”

Back in the preparation room, Spencer had turned from green to pale white. His eyes flicked up to Aaron as he quickly crossed the room to confer with him privately.

“So?”

“You’re good to go,” Aaron nodded grimly.

“Really?”

“Yes. She also said, and I quote, ‘tell him not to worry’. She sassed her guard who warned her about violating the embargo too. I think she knows her mind, Spencer.”

He tried to bolster Spencer with a look and then shrugged a shoulder. “It’s the best you can hope for in this case.”

Spencer’s mouth thinned and he nodded aggressively. “Okay. I’m ready.”

He stepped towards the attendants who would take him to the ceremonial chamber and Aaron’s heart went into overdrive and rammed itself into the back of his throat. “Will you still not permit me-”

“No, Aaron,” he said without looking back, and then, softly, “Wait for me here, please.”

So, Aaron waited. Obediently. Numbly. With a vacuum of absence in his lungs, his guts, his mind. And then Spencer was there again, looking hollow and used, gaze distant. Aaron came to his side immediately and they turned in unison to walk back to Spencer’s royal apartments. The silence wasn’t broken until Aaron couldn’t stand it any longer.

“How’d it go?” he whispered ungraciously through an airless chest and with their footfalls echoing too loudly on the hard floors.

“As expected,” Spencer mumbled. “The ceremony is complete, and the waiting begins.”

When they arrived at his rooms, Spencer pushed quickly inside with a brusque, “I think I’ll throw up now”.


	3. Chapter 3

Though the consummation ceremony was timed in accordance with the consort’s optimum chances for conception, it wasn’t a one-and-done situation. The Royal Couple were expected to meet frequently within the first week of their marriage and seal the deal repeatedly, all while never speaking, learning about one another, or revealing the consort’s identity. This involved the use of various veils to obscure the intended’s face. And though the couple would be alone in a shared bed chamber for these interludes, they were still forbidden from communicating. The consort would also wear a veil while living in the palace waiting to conceive, and she could only remove it in the presence of family or her private servants. The speech embargo only applied to the couple themselves, so if palace staff ran into the consort and Spencer wasn’t within earshot, she could speak to them as freely as she did her own staff. It was still highly impractical and dehumanizing, and Spencer often wondered if he could find a way to change it before his heir came of age for marriage.

“Sorta reduces sex to its moving parts alone. You can’t even make it less awful with foreplay,” he mumbled absently as he and Aaron walked to meet with his Privy Council for the day.

“Isn’t that the point?” Aaron mumbled back. “The embargo is in place so you won’t get attached. In case your intended can’t conceive and needs to be replaced by another candidate.”

Spencer snorted. “There’s an argument to be made that _getting attached_ increases the likelihood of conception. Frequency, enthusiasm, you know. I mean, if you weren’t on birth control, we’d have had a child years ago…”

Aaron’s head snapped sharply to face Spencer as they walked, his breath stalling in his lungs. That wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to say something… _like that._ When the change between them was still so new. 

Spencer must have caught the twitch, as his eyes flicked around, and his pace picked up towards the council room. “Sorry, I… sorry, Aaron…”

Aaron turned his eyes forward again and made a rough sound as he cleared his throat, but that’s all he did. He wasn’t going to absolve Spencer of that guilt, absentminded king or not. Spencer needed to learn how to do _less harm_ if this was going to work. He needed to control his thoughts, and he was already old enough, in Aaron’s opinion, that he should know how to accomplish this without being reminded. Sometimes he exasperated Aaron with his sudden flashes of benign neglect. 

They reached the council room and Aaron stepped aside as the heavy doors were opened. He stood tall, his back straight.

“Will you require me in Council today, Your Majesty?” he asked formally, causing Spencer to turn and stare at him with confusion.

“Uh, no, probably not. It’ll be a long session, and boring. Plenty of tax talk and delays in infrastructure that will lead to swearing and other juvenile behavior.” Spencer grinned. Aaron didn’t react. “Maybe a food fight if we’re lucky. Perhaps you wanna stick around for that…”

“If it’s all the same, my lord, I have other tasks that could use my attention.”

Spencer’s grin fell. “Oh. Well. Yes, attend to your other duties, then. The session should end at four. Please return then.”

“As you wish, Your Majesty.” Aaron bowed quickly and walked away, thinking that formality might be the best armor he had in this private battle of his.

\----

The knock sounded on the armory door as Aaron put the finishing touches on the month’s troop rotation and exercise schedule. He’d run through it quickly while pouting in his office, out of Spencer’s sight. He looked up and found Anderson glaring at him in an officially-unhappy way.

“Sergeant Anderson,” Aaron acknowledged. He wouldn’t stand to greet a foreign guard of lower rank, even if they were autonomous within the palace walls. “How may I assist you?”

“The Princess has requested an audience.”

Aaron glanced at him. “The protocol is to request an audience through the Embargo Secretary. You must be aware of this.”

“No, sir. Not an audience with the King. With you, Captain,” Anderson said the words like they tasted bad. Aaron put his pen down and crossed his arms over his paperwork, perplexed.

“I see. When does the Princess propose we meet?”

“At your earliest convenience, Captain. I can take you to her now, if you’re free.” Anderson’s body language suggested that this order had produced a whole-body constipation in him. Aaron was intrigued by that reaction alone. He collected his schedule and put it away in his desk, dropping the keys into his pocket as he sedately rose from his chair.

“I am at the Princess’s disposal. Please lead on, Sergeant.”

Anderson sullenly led Aaron through the palace, if one can be sullen while still acting as if a giant pole was rammed up their ass. At the entrance to the Princess’s rooms, he knocked and then stood aside, announcing Aaron but allowing him to proceed alone into the chambers.

“Remember your station,” Anderson hissed as the door shut firmly behind Aaron.

He walked into the generous rooms with caution, unsure of what to expect and very aware of the violation in protocol that this visit posed. There was a library, and a large sitting room with bright, wide windows that looked out over the better part of the grounds. A door led to a dressing and bathing chamber, and the Princess’s sleeping chamber was beyond that, he knew. The rooms were close to the Royal Family’s section of the palace, but a chamber closer to Spencer’s rooms had been set aside for the Royal Couple’s use. It had a private passage that led back to this section of the palace and was the primary reason why these rooms had been selected for her in the first place.

What Aaron noted immediately and with mild alarm was that none of the Princess’s servants were present. He looked around until he saw movement from the corner of his eyes. A veiled woman approached from a window seat in the library. Her opaque, maroon veil seemed out of place with the casual sweater and pants that completed her outfit. _A little plain for a princess,_ Aaron thought, and then glanced at the book she held in her hand: an astrophysics textbook. Aaron’s eyebrows popped up, and then he noticed her hands with their nails bitten down to the quicks…

“Thank you for coming, Captain.” Her voice was muffled by the veil, but it wasn’t a girl’s voice. It was confident and a little dark. “Would you like some coffee or tea?”

She gestured for him to sit. He shook his head.

“Where are your staff, m’lady?”

“I asked them to leave us alone for this.”

He tensed against his will. “This is very unusual. Possibly protocol-violating.”

“The protocol has enough of me already, Captain. It can give me this conversation with a trusted member of my husband’s household.” Her voice was suddenly flat, with a sarcastic edge.

“I suppose so,” he agreed. “How may I be of service to you, Princess?”

She folded the book between her arms and stood straight. “I want you to become my personal guard for the duration of my stay here.”

Aaron blinked and tried not to do anything else.

“You have your own guards.”

“They are not mine. They are _my mother’s_ , and they do not serve my interests well,” she corrected.

“Still. It’s not done, m’lady.”

“Captain, they report everything I do to my mother. I have no privacy at all. It’s highly stressful. Stress is not helpful in this situation, as you might imagine.”

“You do not know me, m’lady.” 

He wanted to leave this room immediately. There was an air of peril in what she was suggesting. But the guard training in him kicked in suddenly, and he felt as if it were his duty to protect her if she was in need. Wasn’t that his job as well? Protecting his best friend’s wife?

“I know a little,” she stepped closer and her veil swayed on the supports that held it away from her face. “I know that you’ve known the King since you were boys, and that you were raised together since he has no siblings.” She came to a chair and sat, stretching her longs legs and crossing them at the ankles. She put the book down.

“I know that you took an oath to protect him for life, then trained to become his bodyguard. But that didn’t stop you from shadowing him during his education, and that you received degrees in law and business for yourself, on top of becoming Captain of his personal guard.” 

The Princess sat forward and laced her fingers together with her elbows resting on her knees, the veil swaying mysteriously. “And I know that you almost died in his stead three years ago when you subverted that kidnap and ransom plot by the Duke of Virginia. You had to relearn how to fight when your dominant arm was injured, didn’t you?”

Aaron nodded, a bit breathless. He wondered if she knew _everything_ about him. “That’s all true, m’lady.”

“That CV alone is enough to impress me.” She sat back in her chair, too casual by far for a princess, in his opinion. “But what struck me in our brief meeting in the consummation chamber…”

She tilted her head and waited while Aaron felt a blush bloom across him that he resented.

“…was the way you spoke of the King’s concerns. He confides in you. He trusts you. You are more than a servant.”

Aaron stood rock-still.

“You are his friend,” she concluded, and Aaron told himself to calm down. “So, based on your obvious skillset and His Majesty’s expansive trust in you, I don’t need to know more to believe that you would have my best interests and personal safety at heart far more than my mother’s guards do. They only want me to fulfill this obligation to the letter, so that I’ll no longer be a burden to my family. It isn’t a warm dynamic.”

“Your Highness,” Aaron swallowed and chose his words carefully. He felt for her in her situation, but his focus was clear, and held his heart. “I am flattered to fall under consideration for such a responsibility, and that you researched me so thoroughly. But I have a charge already: the King. He is a full-time job.”

“I’m sure he is,” she chuckled, and Aaron found that reaction odd. She shook her head and the veils swished, which appeared to annoy her. “Well, if not you, one of your men. Someone you trust as much as His Majesty trusts you.”

She fell still, presumably watching him through the veil. Then she shuffled forward in her chair when he didn’t respond. She didn’t seem good at staying still, he thought.

“Were you concerned that this was an untoward request, Captain?”

“It’s never been done, m’lady. Consorts are always cared for by their own people. To avoid embargo violations and… other potential abuses.”

“I understand that. But just because it’s never been done, doesn’t mean it _can’t_ be done,” she said with a conspiratorial lilt.

“I misspoke. By ‘never’, I meant ‘can’t’, Your Highness.”

“Oh, no, I looked it up. There’s absolutely nothing anywhere in the regulations of this baroque, kinky nonsense that prevents a consort from using his or her spouse’s staff as their own. Trust me, I was just as thorough in this as I was in everything else before I made my choice.”

 _Baroque, kinky nonsense? Thorough research? She’s much sharper than I thought she’d be. Spencer’s gonna like that… shit. He’s gonna love that…_

Aaron’s mind cleared suddenly as a huge thought popped into existence on him. _Maybe this is an opportunity to help Spencer. I can’t communicate between them, but my impressions are my own, aren’t they?_

Aaron sighed loudly – the only acceptable form of showing his displeasure to someone above him in society. And also a rebuke of how he couldn’t seem to place his needs before his friend’s, even if it broke his heart.

“All right, m’lady. My guards will take over your personal security. There will be a rotation of them, but they will all be hand-picked by me for their loyalty and devotion to duty.”

The Princess sat straighter, and Aaron assumed that was a delighted response.

“I assume that you wish this to happen immediately?”

“Yes, Captain, I do.”

“So be it. I will need your people to withdraw from this section of the palace. There can be no confusion where security is concerned. Our authority must be unchallenged.”

The veils swished in agreement. “My parents will return to their estate tomorrow, now that it’s been established that I can lie there and act like an obedient cow…”

Aaron arched an eyebrow, but the Princess continued.

“I will tell them to take their staff back with them. I’ll position it as a desire to assimilate into my husband’s household with greater ease. That should satisfy any doubters.”

“Very sensible, Your Highness. I will have Jareau assigned to you for this evening. It is short notice, but she is extremely capable.”

“Thank you, Captain. Your accommodation is appreciated.”

Aaron made a swift bow. “With your permission, m’lady, I have much to organize…”

“Yes, of course. I will not keep you from your duties.”

She stood and then walked towards him, her hand outstretched. He instantly stepped away.

“Thank-”

“Your Highness, contact is forbidden…”

“Oh. Yes. I forgot.” The veils tilted as if she were embarrassed, and she stepped back. “This… cloak of secrecy… it’s so outdated… so… _frustrating_ to negotiate…”

Aaron heard her words in Spencer’s voice, and he sighed. This measure of protection wasn’t protecting much at the moment, for anyone involved. He hazarded a tentative offer to her, responding to the casualness she’d shown since he arrived.

“M’lady… this procedure frustrates my lord as well. He…”

The Princess went very still. Even the veils settled around her constant movement.

“Everyone is aware of their duty in this. But I believe he wishes… that there was more than duty in it.” Aaron swallowed and then raised a hand slowly. “This is merely my impression. He has not said this in as many words to me.”

She was silent a moment longer, and then she whispered, “Thank you.”

Aaron bowed again, turned on his heel, and quickly left before he was tempted to stretch anymore rules.

\---- 

Aaron returned to the council room at four just as the Privy Council made a relieved beeline out of it. They shot him cautious glances as they passed, wary of his stern scowl that he wore _precisely_ because it unnerved them so much. Spencer had told him stories over the years about the attempted coups when he was still young and inexperienced, the deal-making and the secret power-brokering of those close to royalty but who would never be kings themselves. Spencer was surrounded by enemies, even when they posed as his trusted councillors. He had grown up quickly in their company, and Aaron grieved the loss of the boy he’d met when he was eight. Spencer said sometimes it felt as if he could only trust Aaron and Diana, and Aaron couldn’t help but wonder if Spencer secretly hoped some day his new wife would be added to that list. 

On this day, though Aaron wasn’t paying particular attention, he overheard whispered worries. 

“…the threat from Texas is real. And the King of Colorado will join in if he thinks the will is there. A royal marriage won’t do anything to stop that, and he knows it…”

“Perhaps a wife and child will make him more protective…”

Someone snorted. “It won’t change his opinion on conflict. He’s a pacifist right down to the bone. This whole place could be on fire right now and he’d let it burn rather than go to war. He’s weak like his father was.”

“Careful now… this place has ears…”

“I don’t care. I’m tired of endless talk about improving transit systems, and new energy initiatives, and goddamned social responsibilities while the other kingdoms surround us salivating at our lapsed protections!”

“Not here,” someone hissed, and footsteps shuffled away before Aaron could see their faces in the crowd. He grimaced.

 _Well, THAT doesn’t bode well…_

He strode into the council room and shut the door after the last councillor hurried out. Spencer collected his notes at the top of a long table, head down, brows creased as he focused on something he’d written.

“How was it?” Aaron asked.

Spencer sighed loudly but continued reading whatever had caught his eye. “Long. And frustrating. Sometimes I think they believe their job is to get in the way of every idea I have.”

Aaron nodded. “The hallway chatter echoed that.”

“Oh?” Spencer asked quietly and then looked up at him, blinking behind his glasses. “Anything of note?”

Aaron nodded again. “Annexation concerns. To either Colorado or the Texas territory. They believe that you got married to avoid going to war with them for their threatening posture.”

Spencer tucked his papers under one arm and suddenly looked much older than he was. “A marriage won’t silence the warmongering, even if the Princess’s family alliances to the east strengthen us. There are strong voices on the Council to reinforce our borders. Send troops and make a show of power. But I think it’s unnecessarily provocative. We will not be the ones to give another kingdom any excuse to act.”

“But… we shouldn’t discount the threat,” Aaron said hesitantly as Spencer joined him at his side. “The kidnap attempt three years ago… we know that was eventually linked back to the King of Texas…”

Flashes of that night ricocheted through Aaron’s mind: Spencer’s limp body being dragged between two shadowed forms, the explosions in the courtyard, the assassin who tackled Aaron and slashed him over and over as he struggled to reach his King… 

Spencer’s hand squeezed his arm suddenly and brought Aaron back to the lonely council room again.

“I’m not discounting anything.” 

Spencer stared him down and let a meaningful silence hang between them. Aaron heard him yelling his name from that night in his memory – the panic of it clear above the fire and the chaos of guards rushing to finish what Aaron started. As soon as he was free of his captors, Spencer had run to Aaron and wouldn’t let anyone touch him until the Royal Physician arrived and ordered him to be sedated. He’d been a feral animal that night, curled and snapping around Aaron’s bloody body, his boyish handsomeness transformed into something monstrous in the glow of the flames. Aaron was certain Spencer would’ve died for him that night. They would’ve died for each other.

“But I’m not starting a war over _threats_ ,” Spencer continued eventually. “That’s not who we are as a people, Aaron. We will not sacrifice our principles to our fears.”

Aaron’s gaze flicked away, and his mouth tightened. He felt grudging pride then because this was _exactly_ the sort of thing that he loved about Spencer, and it had been a part of him from the day they met as boys. But it was also a constant danger to his reign, and the biggest, brightest target Aaron had ever come across. It drove him nuts.

“Besides, I had this incredible idea about using skyscraper roofs to grow food, and I was trying to get some usable feedback about the legislative realities of enforcing that. But all anyone wants to talk about is war and my sex life…” Spencer huffed and slouched towards the door. “I want to build _forests in the sky_ , Aaron! That’s so much more interesting…”

Aaron reached for him. “Yeah, it is, but it sounds like all of your ideas: challenging and expensive.” He smirked when Spencer turned back and rolled his eyes at him. Aaron was of the belief that royal eye-rolling wasn’t something that should be done. “You can see why you exasperate them, don’t you? Tell me your brilliant mind knows how fundamentally exasperating you are.”

“It’s my job to exasperate. It’s their job to rein me in a little. Checks and balances,” he concluded dryly. “Or did you sleep through the good governance course at college?”

“I slept through nothing but your endless ramblings on ancient Roman infrastructure, the lifecycle of plankton, and your analysis of the totality of _Doctor Who_.”

Spencer mock-gasped in shock and Aaron smiled. 

He also remembered the nights where no learning or discussions were had at all. Just heated grappling and hungry kisses, fingers fumbling through clothing to find the skin underneath, and the whispered, joyful things that came out of them as they thread themselves together. He remembered how he wished some of those nights would never end; that he could hold the boy he loved close forever and never give him up to the world. But he never told him that, never let him know how much he felt or for how long.

Christ, this was hard. How was he going to manage the rest of his life so close to who he wanted, but with him always out of reach?

Something must have changed on his face because Spencer stepped closer and his hand found Aaron’s and clasped it too tightly.

“Ummm, listen… about the stupid thing I said in the hall on the way here…” he murmured. “I wasn’t thinking and-”

“I know you weren’t,” Aaron waved it off. “And I don’t really want to talk about it now. Not when I have something more pressing to discuss.”

Spencer’s eyebrows rose questioningly.

“The Princess asked to see me alone in her chambers this afternoon.”

Spencer kept silent and waited for more.

“She wanted me to take over her personal protection duties.”

Spencer’s eyebrows wiggled. “Interesting. What did you say?”

“I said that it would not be possible for me. I already have a responsibility to protect you.”

Spencer rolled his eyes again, which Aaron did not appreciate this time.

“But I agreed to assign members from the Palace Guards to her during her embargoed time with us if it didn’t contravene the agreement in any way.”

“Jesus, Aaron,” Spencer huffed. “You are SUCH a lawyer sometimes…”

“Rules are important,” he growled.

“Not _these_ rules. They are antiquated and oppressive and hurtful. And they don’t help to make children one iota. It’s lawyers and clerics and bureaucrats who adhere more to tradition rather than common sense that make stupidities like this endure…”

“And it’s leaders like you who rail against them but never once use their power to overturn them who ensure that others will have to suffer through the same indignities after them,” Aaron snapped and felt his ears get hot. Spencer’s mouth clamped shut and his eyes went wide behind his glasses, but he said nothing. Aaron glanced away and cleared his throat awkwardly. “I apologize, my lord. It’s not my place to judge this or you.”

“Aaron, for the love of-” Spencer began angrily.

“Your new wife seems to find the tradition ridiculous as well,” Aaron interrupted without looking back. “She called it a ‘baroque, kinky nonsense’.”

There was a soft snort in response to that. 

“But she’s also researched the tradition extensively. She assured me there would be no protocol issue if the Palace Guards took over, and after I looked into it myself, I see that she’s absolutely correct. So, unless you have an objection…”

Spencer hesitated, appearing surprised he had any say in the matter. “I do not have any objections.”

“Good. Jareau has already taken over and the Princess’s people will be asked to leave with her family’s retinue when they depart tomorrow.”

Spencer nodded. “Jareau’s very good. I approve. Do you think the family will protest?”

Aaron shrugged. “The Princess said she would handle it, and based on the brief conversation we had today, I don’t think she’ll take ‘no’ for an answer.”

“So… she’s assertive,” Spencer hedged, bringing Aaron’s eyes to his and seeing the wary curiosity in them. Aaron sighed.

“She knows her mind, and she’s not shy about expressing herself.” Aaron waited a moment, weighing the wisdom of his next words. “And she’s no girl. Of that I’m certain.”

Spencer blinked rapidly. “What… what do you mean by that?”

“She was very casual with me, very comfortable giving orders.”

“Well, royalty, you know. We’re trained to be that way from birth.”

“No, Spence. It wasn’t… put on or anything. It was practiced, worn in. She’s used to her power and how to wield it. And she wasn’t coy about sex either.”

“I beg your pardon?” Spencer stiffened slightly though his voice didn’t rise.

“She made a few dismissive remarks about the perversity of the veiled marriage, but it wasn’t some sort of prudish horror. It was more as if she objected to turning fucking into a ceremony. It seemed to me that she’d prefer to get on with that business without the pageantry. The impression I got was she’s… comfortable in herself that way. Her sexuality, I mean.” Aaron watched him closely for a reaction. “That’s a woman’s domain, not a girl’s.”

“Y-yes… yes, I see what you mean…” Spencer mumbled oddly.

“She _did_ make me feel awkward about discussing it, and I think that was at least half of the reason why she brought it up to begin with. She was trying to get a read on me.”

Spencer’s gaze sharpened again. Aaron waited.

“So, go on,” Spencer murmured eventually, staring at him like he could pull Aaron’s deepest secrets from him with his eyes alone. “Tell me what you think of her.”

_Oh boy._

“She’s outwardly confident and impatient. She couldn’t sit still for the ten-minute conversation we had. But she’s also anxious and aware of her vulnerability. Her nails were bitten down, and her reason for sending her family guards away was because they were spying on her for her parents. She seemed very alone in that regard; she’d prefer to face marriage to a stranger in a foreign kingdom without their support.”

“Oh…” Spencer whispered, eyes distant and worried. Aaron took in a deep breath and laid the trap that would ensnare him.

“And she’s smart, Spence. Intelligent.”

Spencer’s eyes flashed back to Aaron’s and he leaned forward a little. “How…?”

“She researched me. She knew everything about me before I set foot in the room with her. Nothing about that conversation surprised her, I’m sure. She was testing me, trying to figure out how to use me to her advantage… with you maybe… I’m not sure.”

Spencer’s eyebrows rose slowly.

“So, if she took time to research a subordinate, there’s no way she didn’t try to look into you as well. Unlike you, she _knows_ your identity. If she made the choice to accept your consort proposal, you can bet your life she knew more about you than what the Palace Press Office gave to her.”

“But… her search engine results and social media channels about me would have been blocked just like mine are-”

“Spencer,” Aaron interrupted quietly. “She knew about Gideon. She knew he tried to take you, and she knew I had to relearn how to fight with my left hand because of the nerve damage I sustained. Those details were never made public.”

Spencer’s mouth dropped open, but nothing came out. He snapped it shut again as a blush colored his cheeks.

“Do you think she… you know… asked to meet you because…”

“I dunno,” Aaron sighed. “That’s not public knowledge either. But who knows what gossip passes between royal houses.”

Spencer nodded and stared at his shoes, lips pinching white. 

“And she was reading an astrophysics textbook when I walked in.”

Spencer’s eyes snapped back up, eyebrows lifting a little.

“I thought you’d like that,” Aaron smirked sadly. “I suppose she could’ve been posing with it or something, but…”

“Was it college-level?”

Aaron nodded, and Spencer tried to hide a smile. _Dammit._

“My point here is…” Aaron mumbled after a long silence. “It was only a brief meeting, but… my impression is that she’s not what anyone expected. Not you, your mother, and certainly not her parents. A woman like this… well, she’s chosen this for her own reasons, and we have no idea what those reasons are.”

Spencer’s face lost some of its surprise and became wary instead.

“Considering the preparation and calculation she showed today, I advise caution. Her intentions cannot be dismissed.”

“I haven’t dismissed anything about her,” Spencer said quickly.

“I mean,” Aaron raised his hand. “Be careful with her, Spence. I know you want to trust her, to have a true partnership with your spouse, but… until you know her better, protect yourself.” Aaron swallowed thickly and looked away. “In this case, I can’t do that for you.”

“Aaron…” Spencer whispered and stepped closer, but Aaron pulled away and out of his reach.

“You are meeting her tonight, yes?” he croaked.

“I am,” Spencer replied quietly. “It’s… during the first week, we’re expected to.”

“I know.”

There was shuffling behind Aaron.

“I don’t know how honest you want me to be about all of this, Aaron. You have to tell me what you need here. I don’t think it’s wise for me to try and guess.”

Spencer’s voice was soft and halting, and somehow that made Aaron feel worse, not better. As if he was failing him by being weak…

“I don’t need anything.” Aaron closed his eyes for a moment, then straightened his shoulders. “Please don’t waste time worrying about my state of mind. You have greater concerns to deal with. I am fine.” He turned on his heel and gave nothing of himself away when he faced Spencer again. “Just be careful with her. That’s my professional advice.”

“Of course, I will, Aaron,” Spencer said softly, looking a little adrift. “Of course.”

“Alright then.” He slapped Spencer on the shoulder and ignored his wincing. “Let’s get you back to your apartments. There’s still plenty on your schedule today, and not all of it revolves around your crazy marriage.”


	4. Chapter 4

Spencer was thinking about throwing up again. Walking through a private passage to the communal bed chamber he and his wife were to meet in, wearing pajamas that were over-tailored and clung to him too much, he had a moment of dissonance where he didn’t recognize his life at all. Then he felt sick.

“Oh, get a grip,” he mumbled angrily as he shook himself and kept walking. “You’re an adult, and it’s just sex.”

Sure. Impersonal, joyless sex. Not even as titillating as a one-night stand, though he’d never had one of those, so his understanding of its relative intimacy was purely theoretical. His real problem was that he’d never fucked someone he didn’t care for. For him, the act was inextricably tied to feeling and context, and he had neither in this situation. All he had was purpose: he had to create a child. As if _that_ helped things at all…

“It would be better if I could just talk to her first,” he mumbled as a door appeared at the end of the private corridor. “Aaron always claimed I had great foreplay…”

He bit his tongue and tried to banish Aaron’s face from his mind. That REALLY wouldn’t help. He was struggling to keep his grief about Aaron under wraps. It had only been two days, but it felt like a lifetime ago. And the way Aaron kept dismissing any concern Spencer tried to show him. It wounded him every time. Perhaps he was doing it wrong. Everyone knew Spencer wasn’t always emotionally on the ball, especially Aaron. And when he’d gone and run his mouth about having children with Aaron if things had been different, well, he knew as soon as he said it that he’d made a mistake. Aaron got so cold on him. Spencer had sounded dismissive, but that wasn’t how he felt at all, and by the time he’d figured it out, Aaron was already ‘Your Majesty-ing’ him and walking away. Spencer knew the solution to that conversation should’ve happened years ago. During some soft moment in the darkness, he should’ve pulled his quiet, duty-riddled best friend close and asked him.

_Be mine. Let’s have a family. You’re the only thing I want for myself, Aaron…_

But he didn’t. He knew someday he’d have to marry someone else. Regardless, the tattoo beat through him steadily even after the moment was irrevocably lost: _you’re the only thing I want for myself…_

He reached the door. Somewhere beyond it was a stranger who would hopefully bear his child. He owed it to her to make this as brief and comfortable as possible. And he owed it to Aaron as well; only the future of Spencer’s kingdom could be worth the pain he was causing someone he loved.

“Stop being selfish,” he whispered. “Get on with it.” Then he straightened his shoulders and walked through.

The bed chamber, like all the palace bedrooms, was cavernous, and at first glance Spencer thought he’d arrived too early. He was about grumble something when he caught movement in the dim lighting close to the enormous, canopied bed. The veils swayed dramatically as she walked, but her steps were careful and small. She stood away from the bed, hand wrapped casually around one of the bedposts, looking like some ancient Grecian statue come to life in an ivory veil and silk robe. He held still for a moment, surprised by her sudden manifestation from the gloom, and then had to strongly resist the urge to both loudly introduce himself and wave. Instead, he bowed deeply at the waist, and then stepped into the light cast from the fireplace. She stepped forward too and he became riveted by her bare feet on the Persian carpets, so pale and perfectly proportioned. He was barefoot too, but like the rest of him, his feet were too long and thin. Something hysterical bubbled in his chest as he thought that, and he swallowed it back and looked up.

This was the first opportunity either of them had to actually see one another. Though he couldn’t see her face, he watched her carefully and tried to form an imperfect idea of her from her body. She was… lovely. Shorter than him but still on the tall side for a woman, she seemed to be all legs at first. But as he focused, he noticed the way her robe held her: toned shoulders, a significant rise where the robe crossed her chest, the tight cinch above her waist and the full curves of her hips below it, leading down smooth lines to those well-proportioned feet. Rounded and strong – a formidable type that had always caught his eye in the past. The few girlfriends he’d had when he was younger were full and curvy. Had anyone ever noticed that? Did his mother know and make a conscious decision in that direction for him? His cheeks heated as he shook that off; thinking about Diana was _definitely_ unhelpful right now.

He took another step forward and tried for a smile. He wished he could see her face. She matched his step forward and her hand slipped away from the bedpost. He saw it then – her nails too short and close to pink-rimmed nailbeds – just like Aaron mentioned. And then he remembered that she’d chosen to face this challenge without family or familiar people around her. It must have been so isolating.

He smiled again, wider this time, hoping it seemed genuine, and then he raised a hand to his solar plexus and swirled it in a circle.

_I’m a little nervous._

The veils swished as she cocked her head slightly, following his hand. Then she nodded, and pointed back to herself and then raised her fingers in a V.

_Me too._

He almost laughed at the joy of communication, and then got stuck, having no idea what to do next. Should they just… get into it? That seemed so disrespectful, and he honestly didn’t know if he could get it up on demand that quickly.

She turned casually and walked back to the bed, sitting on the edge of it and arranging her pearlescent robes around her. Then she looked up – well, _the veils_ looked up – leaned back on braced hands and slid a foot along the rug so that the robe split wide up a long, toned leg. He held his breath, and then she patted the bed beside her in invitation. He ducked his gaze and swallowed, then he moved to gently sit alongside her. The veils followed his movements until he was close enough to see them flutter with her breathing. But they were absolutely opaque – he couldn’t see anything. He wondered how well she could see him, especially in a room lit by firelight. He decided to try… wiggling his hands in front of his eyes, and then pointing at her.

_Can you see me?_

One of her hands hesitantly reached out, hovering slightly a moment before she lightly cupped his jaw. He breathed in sharply and they both went still, then she stroked her thumb along his cheek, over and over, and he let his breath back out again. She nodded.

_I see you._

Her hand was warm, its pressure light. The thumb tickled and he felt himself warm underneath it. Jesus, he was blushing. He took another deep breath and then took another risk, his own hand rising to cup her through the veil. But her other hand shot up and curled his fingers into hers faster than he could think.

 _Fuck,_ he thought, and tried to pull his hand back, but she held it firmly. Then with great slowness, she drew it closer, and up under the impenetrable veil. Heat brushed against his knuckles, and then… a soft press of lips that he couldn’t see. He gasped loudly – he couldn’t help it. And then he felt her fingers press his hand open, and lips unmistakably form shapes across his palm.

_Sorry._

She was sorry? For what? Because he did something he wasn’t supposed to? It felt ludicrous. And then, without thinking it through first, he leaned closer and mouthed, _Do not worry_ , meaning it with every inch of himself. 

_Do not worry. We’ll make the best of this. I’ll try to make this place somewhere that you can be yourself as well._

He curled his hidden fingers around hers again and felt her lips press another kiss to them, this one lingering a little. She let him go after that, and his hand fell away to the bed.

He hesitated again, mesmerized by the flutter of her veil as she breathed. He wasn’t sure how to initiate something that was reluctantly expected. He looked down at his hand on the bed, and wished he didn’t care so much about doing this _the right way._ It would’ve been easier if he could treat it like a transaction. Her touch brought his eyes back to her covered face. The veils were tilted again, as if she were considering his expression, and one of her hands was lightly tracing the line of his collarbones through the opening of his shirt. He sighed and gave her a small, thankful smile.

_You’re right. No more waffling. Let’s just be kind and get this over with._

Her fingers dipped down his chest until they tugged gently at the shirt when it stopped her progress. He nodded once, watching the veils intensely, and she began to unbutton the fabric. It didn’t take her long, and he shrugged out of it when she got it open. The awareness of her trailing fingers was heightened as they made warm paths across him, and he felt strangely cold except where her skin brushed against his. She traced ribs, a line down the center of him, she circled a nipple until it rose slightly… All the while the veils moved as if she were following her hand’s path with focused attention. They pulsed with her breath, and to him, it felt as if she were breathing quickly. He hoped that was because she was just as nervous as he was.

Her fingers flirted with the thin line of hair that disappeared below his waistband, short nails taunting his skin with their rough edges. Then he found some courage too. He lifted one of his hands and skimmed a single finger along the base of her throat. She swallowed at the touch, the divot deepening momentarily as she did, and then she took a substantial breath in, her chest expanding from it. Her hand left him and rose to join his at her throat, then, curling his fingers in hers, she led them slowly down under the fold of her robe to her breast. The satin was cool, but her skin was warm beneath it, and he thought he felt the rapid beat of her pulse when he finally cupped her. She released his hand and they both held still for a moment. His fingers spread wide, mapping her shape, enjoying the fullness of her and the softness still hidden from his sight. His index finger tripped across her nipple and she shifted a little closer, arching her back. He did it again and felt the peak rise, warming to the touch. And, mercifully, he felt an electricity zap through him, down his spine, zeroing in on his dick.

_Thank you, limbic system. Just stick with me now…_

He massaged her, experimenting with pressure, waiting on her reaction. She arched her back a little more, pressing herself more fully into his hand, and he nodded to himself.

_That’s okay._

He shifted as he edged closer to her on the bed, and then she quickly tugged the tie to her robe until it came loose, and the satin parted up the center and revealed her to him. His hand stopped and he tried not to act surprised. But it’s always a bit of a surprise when someone invites you to them. His hand left her breast and pressed flat along her belly. He didn’t think about it first – it just happened. His long fingers spread wide across her until he could feel the rise and fall of her as she held still and tried to figure him out.

_Why would you agree to this? Why did I agree to it? Is power so fragile that only a baby can save it? A baby that will grow HERE, inside someone whose name I don’t even know?_

A hand cupped his jaw again, and his eyes rose to meet the opaque, ivory fabric hovering close to him. She held him for an instant, then her other hand cupped the other side of his face. She had his full attention when she nodded slowly and obviously.

_Consent. She’s giving it again, just like at the consummation ceremony._

She braced him a moment longer, and then shrugged off the robe, shuffling up the bed so that her legs didn’t hang off the end. Then she slowly laid back and spread herself open. One of her hands rose from the blankets and reached for him, palm up.

_Come here…_

This time he couldn’t hide his nerves; he stuttered out a rough, loud breath and got up shakily from the bed. He watched her there, waiting for him, and then he nodded and quickly shucked off his pants before climbing back onto the bed to join her. He shuffled between her legs as she bracketed him, and he loomed over her, looking at her in the flickering light. His initial impression had been right: she was curvy and toned. Full hips and beautiful breasts – not too big or showy. His fingers skimmed over what he was allowed to see, circling in a demure patch of dark hair between her legs.

_A brunette then…_

He smiled. He’d learned a lot so far without words: athletic, beautiful, empathetic, mature… He lowered his mouth to a breast and left a soft kiss there in gratitude. She breathed in suddenly, as if surprised, but when he glanced up at the veils, they nodded, so he did it again, this time sucking her in a little. He mouthed her over and over, losing himself momentarily in the warmth of her skin and the feel of her nipple rising against his tongue. She wiggled under him and arched closer. When he released her, she was rosy from his attention, and her veil was moving quickly where it fell across her mouth. He wished he could kiss her. Even if they were strangers, a kiss would’ve been reassuring. So, he did the next best thing; he kissed the center of her between her breasts, and then deliberately mouthed, _Beautiful_ , into her skin. The veil fluttered as if she gasped, or laughed, then he felt her fingers find his hand and drag it between her legs. They traced her together, and he realized it was for his benefit: another sign that she was prepared, and he shouldn’t worry. Her free hand closed over his hip and pulled him closer, so he sent out a silent hope that he wouldn’t suddenly fail and pushed into her.

There was no denying it was awkward, and the silence made that more obvious with only the sound of the crackling fire and the squeak of the bedframe to cover up the sound of them moving together. She was gasping in time with his thrusts, but without eye contact, it was impossible to tell if she was upset, all right, or just trying to get through it. He tried to shake away the thoughts swamping his mind, and thankfully, his body was following its instincts rather than paying any attention to his brain. She pulled him close, wrapping her legs around his waist to get a deeper angle, and she moved with him, doing whatever she could to make it successful. When the tension built in him, he bit down on any show of pleasure. That was just a neurobiological reward, not something that he’d earned by being with her. He worked diligently and came quickly, biting his lip hard and trying to breathe through the release in silence. It was marginally better than fucking a hole through a sheet, but still lacked the connection that would ease the sense of exploitation. She clutched him close even after he'd gone soft in her, and then she stroked his sides before she let him go and they disentangled themselves. He tried not to think about how she hadn’t come; it was obvious and that wasn’t the point, but he felt guilty about it nonetheless. He rolled to the side of the bed as she curled up into a sort of pretzel shape, but she made no effort to get up and leave, which was what he’d expected. 

The veils turned on the bed to watch him as he watched her. After an excruciating moment of nothing, he tentatively reached out and lightly stroked her arm. Then he raised his hand, curling his thumb and index finger into a circle.

_Okay?_

The veils huffed, and again it felt like noiseless laughter to him. Then she gave him a thumbs up sign. He sighed, thinking that was the best he could hope for, and ducked forward to place a soft kiss on her shoulder. _Thank you_ , he mouthed into her skin, wishing that he could say, _Thank you for doing this, and with such grace and care_. Her fingers found their way into his hair, threading through the sandy tangles that everyone told him were undignified for a king. She stroked through his hair over and over while he watched the unforgiving veil. The feeling was a low-grade mesmerism, and that combined with his exhausted anxiety lulled him into a slowly-blinking half-sleep. He had no idea how long they lay there like that, their task completed and inexplicably lingering with each other. But she was the one who broke the spell, pulling herself away gently and donning her robe again. He rose up on his elbows and watched her, absurdly wishing she wouldn’t leave but knowing there was no point in her remaining either. She tied her robe and then the veils rose to meet his gaze. She bowed slowly, and he nodded back, still leaning up from the bed. Then she turned and left through the passage that connected to her rooms, and it was done. 

Spencer flopped back into the bed and contemplated the canopy without much thought for a while. Then, he, too, redressed and left the silent room behind. Until the next night, anyway.

\---- 

The following night was much the same, though Spencer broke his tailor’s heart a little when he sent back the custom-made pajamas and told him that he didn’t see a need for such ostentation. He understood that he couldn’t go to his wife in the baggy, cotton things with the molecules on them that made Aaron laugh, but he was also certain she didn’t really give a damn about what he wore to their nightly rendezvous either. He adopted a robe, much like hers, and it saved them the awkwardness of undressing each other.

For three nights, they met, they carefully fucked, and then they lay together watching and waiting for who knows what. After some consideration, Spencer decided that she lay there in order to give his contribution a bit of a head start, rather than getting up to leave immediately and having the whole process fight gravity. He knew that it wasn’t because of him; after all, she didn’t know him. Sleeping with someone wasn’t the same thing as knowing them. But he couldn’t account for how she touched him in those silent minutes: his hair, his cheek, his throat. 

It always ended with her leaving first, after a formal bow. Then it was as if she didn’t exist until the next night. He never ran into her in the palace corridors or out on the extensive grounds. There were never formal requests from her through her guards or the Embargo Secretary. There were no communal areas where they could meet and learn about each other with all their clothes on. She _seemed_ kind and adjusted to the situation, but that’s all it was: an impression. And after their first evening together, he had not gained any further insight into her at all. 

He began to obsess over that. What if they had trouble conceiving? A consort was given a year to fulfill a contract. What if it took them _months_ to get pregnant? Months of silent nights with an unknowable cypher, and no meaningful connection to bind them? He couldn’t imagine it. It took his body a few nights to develop a Pavlovian response to visiting her, but his mind still recoiled at having no significant relationship to drive their intimacy forward. He spent so much time thinking about it that he lost sleep.

“You don’t look good,” Aaron mumbled one morning a week after the consummation. “Are you feeling okay?”

Of course, Aaron noticed his distraction first. Of course.

“It’s nothing. I’m just tired,” he mumbled back, organizing his papers on the desk in his apartments as he readied himself for his day. “I haven’t been sleeping well.”

There was a calculated silence between them before Aaron asked, “Should I send for the Royal Physician?”

“For insomnia? Really, Aaron…” he snorted back.

Another silence.

“Is it… because of your… evening activities?”

Spencer turned and faced a neutral blankness from Aaron. Damn him. He was so determined to do his duty, so focused on serving his monarch, sometimes Spencer hated him a little. He would’ve given almost anything to see how much this hurt Aaron. At least then, he’d know where he stood in Aaron’s mind. It was impossible to gage emotional importance from his stoic sense of duty. Spencer knew Aaron cared about him, but he didn’t know if he loved him. Not the way Spencer did, anyway. But Spencer _also_ hadn’t said those words when they mattered, so they were both unsure of the other. He sighed at the unfairness of the situation they had partially created for themselves, and that the person he most wanted to share his intimate worries with was the same person he was shutting out for fear of hurting him with them.

“It’s fine,” he blurted instead, and went back to the things on his desk. “Everything’s fine.”

Aaron fetched a long, obvious sigh at this lie. He always told Spencer he was a lousy liar. Then Spencer felt the air shift as Aaron got closer behind him.

“I know what you’re doing, you know,” he murmured in the way he used to when they were alone in the dark. That really wasn’t fair of him. Spencer tried to harden his heart.

“Do you.”

Another sigh happened. “You don’t have to spare my feelings.”

“I think I do,” Spencer bit out. “I think the last thing you want to hear about are troubles between me and _my wife_. So, don’t make me lie to you. Just stop asking.” He took a breath. “It hurts when you ask…”

There was a sudden gasp. “Why does it hurt?”

“Because… I don’t know what to do about this. Because I _want_ to talk to you, but I _won’t_ let myself hurt you any further. And because… what’s on my mind might seem like a betrayal to you. My life would suddenly be much crappier if you thought less of me.”

Aaron’s hand clutched his arm and turned him around suddenly. His dark brows were tented in a V of concern.

“Spence, I’d never think less of you. Never. Of all the stuff we’ve been through… as kids and stupid teenagers… Remember that time we stayed up and watched those Italian horror movies together, and then we fell asleep and you wet the bed when you had a nightmare? Man, if there was ever a moment where you’d diminish in my estimation, it would’ve been when my fourteen-year-old friend pissed all over me in the night.”

Aaron’s face suddenly broke out into a knowing smirk as heat bloomed over Spencer’s cheeks. Damn him again. His hand on Spencer’s arm squeezed tighter as the smirk faded.

“Above all, I’m still your friend, Spence. Truly. Forever and always. That’s got nothing to do with my job, my uniform, or… what we aren’t anymore.”

Spencer ducked his face and sighed.

“Talk to me,” Aaron whispered. “Even if you think it’ll hurt. I’m not asking as your head of security, or a servant looking to see to your comfort. I really want to help my friend. And you’re a good man, Spencer. Whatever you have to say isn’t a betrayal to me. Any kid who apologized as much as you did, and then ruined my clothes by trying to wash the piss out of them without having any clue how to wash things, isn’t an unfeeling person. I know that.”

Aaron waited, and when Spencer glanced back up at him, Aaron was smiling in a way he rarely did for anyone but him. Spencer was pretty sure even Aaron, with his practiced reserve and tact, couldn’t fake that.

“You’re never gonna let that pee thing go, are you?” he said after a long moment, with a smile and his ferocious blush still in place. “I seem to recall it was _your_ idea to watch the films, and you filled me up with Gatorade and junk food, so that my mind would be whirring for hours afterwards…”

“Excuses, excuses, Pee King,” Aaron made a quacking gesture with his free hand and smiled. Then he rubbed Spencer’s arm when their humor faded. “C’mon, tell me what’s going on…”

Spencer sighed and then gently pulled away from Aaron. He didn’t want to touch him if he was going to confess.

“I can’t sleep because of her,” he began, turning back to his desk, and then retreating behind it as he sank down into the deep leather chair.

“How so?” Aaron asked cautiously. Jesus, this was going to hurt him – there was no way it wouldn’t.

“It’s like… sleeping with someone who doesn’t exist. I _know_ she’s consented to it, but it still feels… awful. It feels like I’ve reduced her to her most basic attribute, and she’s only there for my biological contribution. If that. Honestly, who knows why she’s doing it…” He dropped his head into his hands, feeling the nascent ping of an impending headache there. “I _hate_ fucking her like she’s nothing more than a hole in a sheet.”

Spencer saw a twitch from the corner of his eye and knew that his words disturbed Aaron. He breathed out wetly.

“What if it takes a while, Aaron?” he whispered. “What if… this goes on for months? I… I can’t do it. I get hard just walking to our room at night, but I hate it. I’ve never… been with someone I didn’t care for.”

Spencer felt Aaron twitch again. _Sorry_ , he whispered to him in his mind. _I know this hurts – I’m so sorry._

“I want to know her – I can’t help it. It’s the only way I know how to make this okay inside my head. I want to understand her rationale in this, I want to talk to her. Dammit, I don’t even know her name… when I come, I can’t even silently thank her. She’s just ‘the princess’…”

“I… I know it’s difficult-” Aaron stuttered.

Spencer suddenly glared at Aaron, his face hot again, but this time with shame. 

“Everyone tells me that they understand how difficult this is, but no one _really_ thinks there’s any great hardship for a man being asked to service an anonymous woman. People act like I’m being ludicrous. I mean, this scenario is some sort of pornographic wish-fulfillment, right? Well, it damnwell _isn’t_. I can tell you from experience that it’s not titillating at all. Neither of us is getting any pleasure from it beyond what I need to physically complete the act. It’s humiliating and filthy. She doesn’t even exist outside of this failed wet dream because I never see her anywhere but naked in that room. She’s not real – how can she only exist in that room? If I saw her around the palace maybe… or in the gardens or the fields… she’d take on some dimensions.”

“You can’t talk to her-”

“I know that, Aaron!” he barked and turned away again. “But that’s why I can’t sleep. I just lie awake and worry about this. And I don’t want to eat because my stomach’s in knots. I… just can’t keep being this way. It isn’t me. She’s my wife. She’s supposed to _mean something_ to me, but the protocol forbids that from happening. How am I supposed to connect with her?”

There was silence between them then. Honestly, his little tirade hadn’t done anything but make someone else equally miserable. Aaron couldn’t fix this. Spencer’s shame sank into him even further.

“I gave you up so that I could be _someone_ to her…” he whispered and tented his hand over his eyes. “But I’m expected to treat her like a whore. I didn’t know it would be like this… that it would be so hard, or that it would make me feel so terrible in the process.”

Aaron said nothing. What could he say? They remained in their separate corners until the quiet stretched out into awkwardness that neither could bear. When Spencer glanced back at him, Aaron wore a look of muted devastation for a split second before he hid it away.

“Aaron-” Spencer choked, on the cusp of apologizing again for his selfishness.

“I wish I could help,” Aaron mumbled quietly, taking on the stance of Guard Captain. So, Aaron the childhood friend was gone again. Spencer stiffened and tried not to feel so alone.

“Thank you for listening, at any rate,” he whispered back.

“Of course. Whenever you need me.” Aaron’s tone belied his sentiment. It sounded like he never wanted to be burdened with that again. Spencer got the message loud and clear. “May I be excused for thirty minutes? I know that you don’t have any public meetings until the one with the Mexican Ambassador at eleven…”

Spencer blinked at the sudden shift in him.

“I have some housekeeping I need to attend to,” Aaron clarified. “Unless you require me with you, of course.”

“No, uh, no. Go ahead and do what you have to. I’ll be here until the meeting with the Ambassador anyway. Morgan’s outside the door. I’m perfectly safe.”

“Thank you.” Aaron bowed, something he never did when they were talking as friends. Spencer deflated at the idea that his pointless confession had only succeeded in pushing Aaron further away. “I’ll be back as soon as possible.”

Spencer nodded and winced as his head pinged again. Aaron turned on his heel and strode to the door with the polished precision he’d honed to a razor’s edge. Spencer never admitted how much Aaron’s quiet authority and disciplined precision turned him on. It seemed bad form to think about it now.

“Take something for the headache,” Aaron ordered over his shoulder, and Spencer looked up to find a tiny smirk curling the corner of his mouth. Then he was through the door and gone.

Damn him and the way he saw through Spencer without any effort at all.

\---- 

Aaron approached the Princess’s apartments and Jareau snapped to attention when she saw him.

“Sir.”

“At ease, Jareau,” he ordered quietly, and Jareau clasped her hands behind her back and widened her stance obediently. “Is she inside?”

“Yes, sir, but we’re about to go for a run.”

“A run?” Aaron looked Jareau over and noticed that she was in her black guard exercise uniform complete with black sneakers and a mobile security comm nestled in her ear. Jareau smiled in that sparkly way she had about her that convinced you that she _wouldn’t_ snap your spine.

“Five miles every day. She’s like a metronome, sir.”

“But you keep to the grounds, yes?”

“Of course, sir. We both understand the restrictions. She just has a lot of energy. And she’s as fit as I am. She even asked if we could spar together,” Jareau chuckled.

“Not while she and the King are trying to conceive,” Aaron ordered and Jareau’s smile vanished as she nodded.

“No, sir. Obviously.”

“I just need five minutes with her.”

“Yes, Captain. I’ll see if she’s decent.” Jareau knocked on the door, then ducked inside to announce him. She reappeared and nodded. “I’ll remain out here, sir.”

He walked into the Princess’s rooms and saw her immediately this time, sitting on a couch and tying her running shoes. She was in black athletic wear just like Jareau. They could’ve been twins if not for the sleek black face mask that hid her from him and yet revealed so much more than the veils did.

“Morning, Captain,” she said casually, her voice muffled by the mask. “What can I do for you?”

“I came to check in. I wanted to know how the new security detail was working out for you.”

Her masked face looked up at him.

“Everything to your satisfaction, m’lady?”

“Yes. Your people are very professional. I feel well cared for. And I especially like Jareau. So refreshing to see a capable woman in that role.”

“I’m glad to hear it, m’lady. We have several women in the Palace Guards, but Jareau is one of our best.”

“Did you assign her to me because she is a woman?”

“I assigned her because I trust her in all security matters. But I thought it might also be a comfort to have a woman on your detail. In my experience, guards sometimes become confidantes. Perhaps you could relate to her more readily.”

“And you’d get valuable intel in the process.” The Princess rose to her feet and stretched her arms above her head, revealing her form through the tight running outfit. “Smart.”

“Your guards are here for your protection, Your Highness. Not to spy on you,” he grimaced.

“It’s fine, Captain,” she waved him away. “I’m not accusing you or them of anything. They are head and shoulders above my mother’s people, and I am satisfied with that. Truth be told, I haven’t slept this well in years, so if they let you in on a few details about me in the process of giving me ease of mind, I’m fine with it.” The mask looked back at him and away from the stretch she was completing. “No need to be disingenuous, Captain. You made it clear that your primary concern is the King. I know you’d like to ease concerns you may have about the stranger he’s suddenly spending time with.”

“I cannot tell him anything, m’lady.”

The Princess scoffed as if she didn’t believe him, and he wondered if she _expected_ him to tell Spencer about her.

“Is that the only reason for your visit?” She began disconcertingly jumping up and down as if she were going to rocket up and out of the palace through the roof. It was very distracting. “Not that it isn’t nice to see your handsome face and trade pleasantries like this, but I was about to go for a run. I’m a monster if I don’t get my daily run in.” 

“I’m sure you are,” he mumbled, and saw her mask cock as if she heard him. Her informality was rubbing off on him. He’d have to watch that. “There was one other matter, Your Highness. I was wondering if I could ask a favor of you.”

She stopped bouncing and appeared to focus her attention on him. “A favor?”

“Yes.” Aaron swallowed and went for broke. He’d have to be the one who showed trust first it seemed. “I was wondering if you could… make more of an appearance around the palace. In the libraries, the games room, the theater… any of the common areas.”

She remained very still. “I’ve been diligent in avoiding that, Captain. So as not to strain the embargo rules too much.”

Aaron nodded. “I realize that, and I appreciate the effort. But the King is… wrestling with this arrangement. More than he anticipated.” He stepped towards her. “If I may speak plainly, he is troubled by the compartmentalization involved. He feels he is disrespecting you, and that weighs on him, m’lady.”

“I… I’ve tried to assure him as much as I can,” she said carefully.

“I know. _He_ knows. But he’s a thoughtful man. Some say he thinks too much, to his detriment. In reality, I don’t believe he has a lot of control over whether he thinks or not. It’s just how he’s built.”

“You know him _very_ well, don’t you?” the Princess asked softly, and the tone as well as the question threw him.

“We grew up together,” he dismissed. “We’re family, m’lady.”

“Hmmmm.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Anyway, if he saw you during the day on the grounds, or in the common areas of the palace, he might begin to see you as someone _other_ than the woman he knows at night. I’m not asking you to break any of the embargo rules, just… show more of yourself to him. As much as you are able. I think it would help.”

She remained still, with arms folded across her Lycra-covered chest, head tilted as she considered him. Then she sighed and dropped her arms.

“Honestly, I’m surprised it took you this long to discuss this with me.”

“M’lady?” He felt confused, and at a sudden disadvantage to her, which he didn’t like.

“He hasn’t been good at hiding his worry when we’re together,” she sighed. “There’s only so much assurance I can offer. Silently. Without knowing him.”

Aaron’s eyebrows lifted. “That’s… he feels the same way. _Exactly_ the same, m’lady,” he said breathlessly, heart pulsing faster. This was getting dangerously close to communication between the Royal Couple.

The Princess sighed and sagged a little. “I don’t know what more I can do.”

“Show yourself,” Aaron gulped. “Metaphorically speaking. Be around. Reveal what you’re feeling… in the… in the moment. If you can. That would be enough. He’s looking for that.” Aaron ducked his gaze to his shiny boots. “Forgive my casualness, Your Highness. It is only in service to my King. To you both.”

There was an awkward silence between them, and then she cleared her throat. “Your dedication to your lord is remarkable, Captain. He is very fortunate to have such an ally.” Aaron looked back to her black mask. “And I guess I’m fortunate to benefit from that dedication by proxy. Thank you for your insight.”

“M’lady.” Aaron bowed and backed towards the door, feeling dismissed by her.

“Captain,” she called out, and he looked at her again. She clasped her hands in front of her and huffed. “Perhaps you could let His Majesty know that his consort appreciates his generosity. His _nightly_ generosity.”

Aaron felt a flush creep up his neck. There was no way that comment wasn’t referring to an intimacy between them.

“That has been unexpected, but I shall try to show my appreciation more openly in future.”

“Yes, m’lady. Thank you. Enjoy your run.” He bowed again, and then had a parting thought. “If there is anything you require to make your stay here more pleasurable, please do not hesitate to ask, Your Highness. Either through the Embargo Secretary or… correspondence to His Majesty’s office.” He paused pointedly. “No one would find fault in attending to your requests.”

Communication between the Royal Couple might be forbidden, but the King didn’t open his own mail. Contacting him via his private office wasn’t considered a violation. Everyone knew that. What everyone _didn’t_ know was that, once opened, all correspondence was read by the King without exception or censorship. It presented an opportunity.

Aaron smiled and quickly left, both buoyed by the progress he’d made and heavy with the implications for his own happiness. He was on a path to get his King and future Queen closer, and that in turn would leave him far behind.

\----

Aaron caught up with Spencer just as he was about to leave to meet the Mexican Ambassador. He relieved Morgan with a nod and took up his place at Spencer’s right side wordlessly. Spencer was nose deep in the latest trade agreement details that he was about to renegotiate, squinting behind his glasses and fussing with his trim, dark suit like it was trying to eat him. He was still pale; Aaron wondered if his headache was still bothering him. If left unchecked, history told Aaron it could get out of control and take him down for a day or two. And Spencer was too busy for breaks like that.

“Feeling any better?” Aaron asked.

“Mmph…” Spencer didn’t look up. They continued walking in silence.

A long, circuitous journey brought them to an opulent room specifically for formal audiences with dignitaries. Aaron smirked thinking that there was a room for every conceivable event imaginable, and what a nightmare that must be for interior designers. Another guard opened the door and Spencer’s eyes came up as he pocketed his glasses and put on a diplomatic smile.

“She runs every morning,” Aaron whispered before they stepped through. Spencer’s head whipped around to look at him, mouth open. “Somewhere on the grounds. It wouldn’t be hard to find out where.”

Spencer’s gaze got huge and his mouth closed to a thin, tight line. He nodded once at Aaron, slowly and with respect, then he turned back towards the open door, fixed his fake smile back into place, and strode through.


	5. Chapter 5

Spencer arrived at the bed chamber early. He felt it sent a better message than simply showing up after his wife had arrived, when his appearance seemed to signal that he was only there for sex. And she was always waiting for him. So, he opted to wait for her instead. 

This would be their final required night together for the month. The consort’s fertility window was most likely closed at this point, but the embargo rules erred on the optimistic side. They wouldn’t be required to meet again until the next fertility cycle, or if it was determined that she was already expecting. They could continue meeting if they both agreed to it, but without the prospect of conceiving, that tended to raise a few eyebrows. Because they weren’t supposed to give a damn about each other.

Aaron surprised Spencer by going to the Princess to plumb her intentions. Not only was it far beyond the scope of his position, but Spencer imagined it was personally uncomfortable for him as well. He was unsure why Aaron had done it and humbled by the selflessness of the act. In keeping with his duty, Aaron hid his reasons and feelings, even when he confided the Princess’s gratitude for Spencer’s “nightly generosity” with a blush scorching his face up to his ears. Spencer had little clue how to take the Princess’s comment, but his chest tightened at Aaron’s quiet discomfort. He never wanted Aaron to take on this role – to be a conduit between him and his spouse. It was cruel and unfair, and despite Spencer’s decree that Aaron should stop, he knew that he wouldn’t. And that made it all the more heartbreaking, because Spencer loved him terribly for that while also being incredibly irritated that Aaron wouldn’t spare them both from this hurt.

Spencer picked at the bedspread and told himself to stop thinking about Aaron. Perhaps in time it would get easier. Maybe one day Aaron would find someone else, settle down, and have his own family as well. Maybe they’d look back on this, as old men, and it would be less injurious, after decades of contentment to give them a wider perspective. Maybe. At least thinking on this had taken care of his automatic arousal, he grimaced internally. It was difficult to make these meetings about something other than sex when he was sporting an erection.

A door at the far end of the chamber opened and she slid silently through it, this time in matching burgundy robe and veils that made her hands and feet seem paler. He sat up straighter on the bed, and when she caught sight of him, she froze. He didn’t know why that was, but he waved at her and smiled to try and ease her. After a moment, she waved back and then hurried over to the bed. She tapped her bare wrist.

_Am I late?_

Spencer shook his head and patted the bed instead. She quickly sat beside him, hands folded in her lap against the dark satin. He found the colour alluring and tried to imagine her in an outfit of the same shade, with her complexion and dark hair highlighted by it. He wondered what colour her eyes were… She was still waiting on him – he didn’t know what she was waiting _for_ – but he reached for one of her hands and raised it to his mouth for a gentle kiss. Then, he took a deep breath and fished the scrap of paper from his robe pocket, handing it to her. He was breaking the embargo, and though he was committed to their course and their marriage, he allowed himself this one violation because he didn’t know how to express it silently.

The note read: _We don’t have to do this if you don’t want to._

She focused on the note for a long moment, then the veils swished as her hidden glance focused back on him. There was no way to judge how this statement landed with her. He released her hand and repeated her tapping motion on his wrist. Then he reached out and spread his palm wide across her belly, and then shook his head.

_The window is over._

They were required to meet tonight, but he was aware of the pointlessness. He took her statement about “generosity”, and decided to offer an out for the evening, no questions asked. To him, it felt like giving them both some say in the situation.

She remained unmoving for a long time, and he had no idea what to do. Then she stood up, crossed the room to the fireplace, and threw his note in watching it burst and flame into nothingness. She lingered, gazing into the fire, and then turned back, walking to him slowly. She stood before him, and then released the tie to her robe. He held his breath as the dark fabric parted it and she shuffled it over her shoulders to pool at her feet. Then she just stood there, pale and backlit by the firelight, waiting on him again. He was immediately transfixed by her form, her lovely breasts, the curve of her hips, her taut belly. Was there a child already growing there, still unknown and secret? He felt a blush race over him, hot and urgent, and then he realized he was aroused again. So much for being a gentleman. But what did it mean if they had sex tonight when it was unnecessary? What was she offering him with her spilled robe and her refusal of his proposal?

His gaze trailed up her body and back to her veils, and he tried to ask her these questions with his eyes. She shrugged when he continued to stare and not act. Then she reached for his hand and pressed it to her chest above her left breast, and she did the same with her hand on his left side. He looked at their hands connecting each other, and then she released her grip on his hand and gestured between them. He thought he understood: _just for us._

His breath left him. What she was offering… it had to mean he was more than just her sperm donor. And it was obviously a choice, a way to establish an understanding between them. It was an authority over the veiled marriage that they could assert together, as partners.

Spencer swallowed hard and reached out to curl a hand over her hip, then he slowly pulled her close, her hand leaving his chest and skimming up to cup his jaw as he watched her. His other hand slid down and curved around her waist, tugging her in until he planted a soft, open-mouthed kiss to her abdomen. He closed his eyes, licking her skin, breathing in her scent, and then he mouthed, _Okay_ , against her. He felt her fingers thread through his hair after that, stroking gently in a way that he was becoming enamoured with. If she found his appearance less than regal, as so many did, she kept it to herself. _Wouldn’t it be something_ , he thought, _if she found my body as compelling as I find hers?_

His lips roamed across her belly, leaving languid affection over it as his arms circled her waist and snuggled her closer. He wondered how they should proceed, but almost immediately the answer came to him. He looked up at her veils again as she twirled her fingers in his hair, and then he pulled her until she sat next to him on the bed once more. Before she could adjust herself, he slid off the mattress to the floor, rising up on his knees as he shrugged out of his robe. She went still again, unsure of him, but he shuffled up to her legs as they hung down from the bed. He reached out to her thigh to press her wider, and he heard her gasp. He went still, trained his eyes on the veils, and tried to exude calmness. After a moment, she nodded and shuffled her legs so he could hunch between them. She sat and waited, then, as he kept his eyes on her veils, he rose up slowly and forced her to lie back onto the bed. Once she was stretched out, he skimmed down her torso and kissed her belly once more as his hands traced warm circles along her inner thighs. He heard her sigh then, felt it in the way her belly softened under his mouth, and he smiled.

_Okay. Time to flip expectations here…_

He licked and sucked at her, mapping out her belly button, the rise of her muscles beneath it, and nuzzling into the hair below that. She wasn’t smooth like a prepubescent girl and he’d never understood that aesthetic anyway. After all, men rarely gave the same concern for their body hair, so, in his mind, things ought to be equal between the sexes on that score. He mouthed her some more, enjoying it for its own sake, and then realizing she was wiggling a little under him. He glanced up and saw her still stretched out, but with one hand moving across the bedspread aimlessly, and the other massaging her breast. _Oh… alright…_

He nuzzled to the juncture of her thigh and gave it a slow suck, spreading her wider still, and then she heaved a little and the firelight caught something in its glow. There was a scar along her lower abdomen. It was worn, only slightly lighter than the skin surrounding it, but the tissue was raised and that’s what caught his eye. He hovered closer; it wasn’t surgical or clean. It was long and ragged. His fingers reached up and brushed it before he could think about it, and she twitched violently, a hand racing down to pull his fingers away as she gasped. He stifled a yelp and then froze, eyes flicking up her body to where she was now leaning up on her elbows staring at him. He didn’t know what had just happened. Staring a moment longer, he eventually mouthed, _Hurt?_ The veils swished ‘no’, but her fingers still clasped his. Another silent moment passed, and then she let his hand go. He looked down at the scar. So, it was a psychological aversion.

Gently, he lowered his mouth and breathed against her skin just clear of the scar. Her muscles tensed, but she didn’t drag him away again. He repeated the same action all around the scar, never touching it. Then he circled her again and kissed each spot. The room got very quiet and he noticed everything: the fire crackling, the slip of his lips against her, her shallow breathing above him. He just breathed and skimmed her skin, over and over, until her tension ebbed. Then, he moved until he was over the center of the scar and slowly lowered his lips to brush her there. He mouthed, _Beautiful_ , when he did it. Because he didn’t know what the scar meant. To him it was just a part of her, without a narrative to taint it like it had been tainted for her. He kissed it again and then glanced up at her.

_It’s just skin._

She reached for him then, not to pull him away, but to thread her fingers through his hair again and tug it softly. It felt familiar, like a silent shorthand between them. He smiled at her and saw her veils flutter with a sudden breath; he hoped he’d made her laugh. 

Ducking down, he left a final kiss on the scar, then dipped lower as she sighed, and her fingers worked his scalp. He shuffled to her center, kissing the thighs brushing his head on either side. Then he considered his position. His hands reached for her hips and dragged her to the edge of the mattress. He heard her huff above him, and then she gasped when he spread her. In the firelight, she was muted shadows and forms. He drew a finger along her to gain his bearings, never having given himself permission to focus on her details too much until now. Her hips canted at the brief pass and his finger came away damp. Something basic in him thrilled at that, even though his intellect said that he still hadn’t earned it. He made another pass, this time with two fingers, one outlining her while the other pressed her folds. Her body twisted a little, but she remained silent. He glanced up and found her lying back on the bed again, back arched slightly, and fingers curling in the blankets.

_She can’t make a sound. Can’t tell me what she’s feeling…_

He watched her closely as he pressed a finger into her. She tensed around him, but she was also warm and wet. Her head never rose from the mattress, and she didn’t move to stop him. He added another finger and pulsed them. She arched again silently, her breasts revealing a blush across them even in the dim firelight. The veils pulsed too where they fell across her mouth; she was breathing harder, if silently. He shifted his gaze to his fingers and watched them work her, slick when they reappeared before disappearing again. His mouth went dry: he suddenly wanted to taste them. Slowly pulling out of her, he sucked them into his mouth and licked them clean. There was rustling then, and when he glanced at her, she was propped up on a single elbow, watching him, her veils billowing obviously.

He stared at her for a long moment, and then pushed her left leg up so that her heel rested on the mattress buttressed by his shoulder. His other hand pushed her other thigh until she was wide and exposed in front of him. Then he dipped in and licked her slowly from end to end. There was a soft thud and a quickly cut off whine that was lost almost before it began, and the combination made his chest tight and his cock twitch. He licked her seam again, taking time to wiggle the tip of his tongue between her edges. Her hips jostled again, knocking him off balance, but he took it as a good sign. He licked softly, quickly, flicking and lavishing by turns as he listened to her uneven breathing like it was a secret message. He nosed up to her bud, finding it a little swollen, and circled his tongue around it. She wiggled and adjusted under him, but even with all of that, he thought he felt the sensitive skin pulse against his tongue when he sucked her in with a gentle tug. Latching on, he lapped at her, his mouth musky from her taste and scent. One of her hands dived back into his hair, pulling hard now, pushing him closer to her and not away. He groaned a little at her recklessness before he could clamp down on it and funneled his frustration at their forced silence into his mouth on her. Then he pushed two fingers back into her and pulsed them much harder than before, finding them slipping more easily and her hips rolling to meet them.

Her breathing was impossible to ignore now. Harsh and gulped like it had never been before. He felt her twist as she tried to curl closer. He buried his fingers in her until his knuckles brushed her edges. And then she made a sound she couldn’t control – a soft cry that was part pain and part relief. His cock pinged hard at it, and then he felt dampness pooling across his thighs. Suddenly the mammal in him wanted to rise up and mindlessly bury himself in her to the hilt, pumping until he filled her, knowing she’d grow full and heavy because of him. 

He pulled away from her core, shaking from the haze that clouded him. He was losing himself suddenly, and it took him by surprise. His only purpose this evening was to offer her pleasure. He hadn’t realized how quickly he’d fall into that pleasure as well. Her head moved and he glanced up to find her looking at him, the veils fluttering violently across her mouth. If only he could see her face. Would she be a glazed, aroused animal like him? Would there be instruction in her eyes? Frustration? Indulgence? He breathed roughly as he watched the veils move and his fingers pumped her relentlessly. She wiggled her hips until they perched on the edge of the mattress, trying to get more, to feel the pressure deeper. They moved too easily now, as she dripped down over his hand. He added a third, thrusting as deep as he could out of rhythm to give her a new sensation, and her head fell back on the mattress, breasts arching up as she twisted, and the veil dipping into her open mouth as she struggled silently.

_Christ, you are exquisite right now… wish I could tell you…_

He removed his fingers and pushed his face into her brutally. He hadn’t thought about it, just following some blood-borne instinct to push her higher, to test her limits. Lapping into her over and over, her whole body tried to twist around him. Her thighs bracketed his head too closely, cutting off his hearing, but he felt her pulse against his mouth, smelled the way her scent had changed, felt her nails digging into his scalp, and he kept going. Harder, faster, until his jaw began to ache from it. Then he was suddenly worried he couldn’t make her come this way – he was already as deep as he could go, and he’d never actually gotten a lover off with just his hands or his mouth alone. He whined, unable to control the thought, and then he choked a little when he panicked and tried to pull back to breathe but she refused to let him go. He coughed and then gasped hard once, worried as she tensed incredibly around him. Then she burst against him without warning, and his mouth was suddenly filled with her taste. There was a distinct cry, even with his ears muffled, and then he licked and sucked her for all he was worth, amazed by the shift in events. Her pulsing eased, her thighs relaxed and rested along his shoulders. He could hear her gasping for air as he lapped her until she sagged back towards the mattress. Her fingers rested in his hair, her belly went soft again as he leaned his forehead against her to finally catch his breath.

He huffed into her skin; her scent was everywhere – his mouth, his nose, his brain was wild with it. The fire crackled distantly, but his mind focused on his libido shouting at him. He was painfully hard; looking down he saw glistening strands crisscrossing his thighs where he’d dripped down. Just looking at himself, red and urgent in the firelight, a tremendous wave rolled through him and his cock twitched noticeably, the head dripping again.

Spencer looked up the Princess’s body and saw her breathing was calmer, her body looser. The veils fluttered again, and one of her hands was lazily teasing a nipple. 

_Fuck. Can I do this? Tonight was supposed to be about her._

But he was tight everywhere as he swallowed down her taste again and again. It was want – he _wanted_ her. He’d never felt that about her until now. She rolled to her side and her breasts pillowed against each other with the shift. He remembered the feel of her nipples in his mouth, the pretty pink flush they took on when he’d sucked them on previous nights. And his cock throbbed painfully.

He quickly unhooked her thighs from his body and slid up behind her on the mattress, spooning her tightly as she lay catching her breath. He felt her gasp, his hand spread wide across her belly, and then that hand drifted to her thigh. He curled his fingers behind her knee and lifted her leg to lie across his hipbone as he shuffled lower behind her. The movement spread her wide again, this time on her side, and his cock poked free between her legs. It wouldn’t take much – just another shuffle and a canting of his hips – he could be inside her. But he waited, with both of them exposed.

It took a moment, but one of her hands reached back and skimmed his neck, twisting up into his hair again. The fingers circled as they had before, and then she pulled his head closer in silent invitation.

_Come here…_

He dropped his head so he could groan into her shoulder, and he wiggled along the mattress, pulling her thigh high over his hip before he pushed into her from behind. He felt her gasp more than heard it, but she was still wet enough that he wasn’t hurting her. Perhaps he went too deep too quickly – his control was a little shot – but she pushed back against his thrusts making sure he got as much of her as possible with each pass. And, god help him, she felt good. For the first time, she felt _willing_ , and there wasn’t the pressure to fulfill an agreement. He almost came on the spot when he realized that.

He rolled against her ass, listened to her breathing and the wet slip of them together, he stuttered hiccupped gasps into her back and then tried to silence them by turning them into kisses as he pushed into her again and again. Her fingers worked his hair, the way they did when she lulled him down. And her free hand found his pinned between them and the mattress and dragged it until he could knead her breast. He nearly lost it when he tugged and pulled until her nipple became a hard peak and she bit back a whimper. He gasped open-mouthed against her back and then scored her skin with his teeth. His hips kept pumping, her breast pillowed in his hand, his grip on her thigh spread her wider until she tightened around him from the strain of the angle. Then, somehow, she got wetter…

_oh god… wish I knew your name… what’s your name?_

He came so quickly, his vision whited out on him and he clamped his eyes shut, leaning his face hard into her shoulder. His spine curled and his grip on her thigh pulled her as close as he could get when he let go. The pulse was almost painful, stealing his breath from him, and then the pleasure that chased it filled his lungs again. He knew he made a sound – some sort of inarticulate moan – but he couldn’t find the energy to worry about it. There was only her around him, and his stupid, animal pride dripping down over them both. He sloppily kissed her at the crook of her neck – as close to her face as he dared with the veils in place – and she scrunched against him with a sigh. Her fingers kept skimming through his hair, even after he pulled away, releasing her leg and smoothing a warm path along her hip with his palm.

 _Thank you_ , he mouthed against her shoulder. It seemed like he was always thanking her, but at least this time it wasn’t out of guilt. She shrugged against him, cupped his cheek for a moment, and then settled his arms around her waist. And they lay there together, just like after every previous interlude. But tonight he thought they did it because they were exhausted and they _wanted_ to. 

When she got up to leave some time later, he waved and smiled at her, and she waved back. It made him feel marginally lighter, like it was a beginning of something. He didn’t linger after she was gone and didn’t lie awake in his apartments either. Waking from a dreamless, uninterrupted sleep, he felt incrementally better. He wouldn’t see her again for a few weeks, but he felt they ended on a good note.

\----

The morning brought new challenges, appointments, the mail, but also an unexpected surprise from the Office of the Embargo Secretary. He read the formal note and couldn’t believe how much two sentences could shock him.

_Her Royal Highness, the Princess Consort issues a standing invitation to His Royal Highness, King of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico to meet in their Private Quarters nightly at nine p.m. Please advise whether this invitation should be accepted or rejected, or an alternate time and place be suggested.  
\- Office of Embargo Secretary_

He must have stared at the letter too long. Aaron glanced up from his tablet across the desk from Spencer, cocking an eyebrow.

“Everything okay?” he asked.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Spencer breathed back.


	6. Chapter 6

Spencer sat across from his mother in the dining room looking over his daily reports and agenda while distractedly making a mess of his breakfast. It was a quiet morning, which wasn’t unusual for them, but he suddenly became aware Diana was staring at him. He glanced up over his glasses and raised an eyebrow at her bemused expression.

“Something the matter?”

Diana smiled and shook her head. “Nothing, darling. You look good. That’s all.”

“Ummm, thank you?” He felt heat rise in his cheeks, and he was almost certain she was setting him up for something.

“I think married life suits you.” 

There it was. He rolled his eyes and went back to his reports.

“It’s been almost a month now,” Diana pressed.

“Mom,” he sighed.

“How’s it going?”

“Mom, don’t.”

“I put a lot of work into organizing this match. I’m just curious about the results. And I’m your mother, after all.”

“Which is why I won’t be discussing my intimate life with you,” Spencer deadpanned while flicking a glare at her. She waved his rebuff away.

“Come now, Spencer. We’re both adults, and it’s merely procreation…”

“Well, you have your answer then, don’t you?” he snapped and flicked his file folder closed. “I’m doing my duty, and you’ll know about the success or failure of those efforts when I do.”

Diana sighed at him, long and low, then she sipped her coffee and let an awkward silence eat its way between them until his blush became about guilt at his meanness towards her.

“Sorry, Mom,” he mumbled softly.

“Spencer,” she replied just as softly, clinking her coffee cup against its saucer to punctuate it. “You forget that I was once a consort.”

Spencer stared at her, suddenly horrified by that thought. Of course, he knew her history, and that she’d come to the kingdom to align with its sovereign. But thinking about her submitting to a stranger in that way, even one who would become his father, he felt defensive and angry in an instant. He thought about his own Princess, and how it was between them – whether that was easier or harder for her. And then he considered his father’s coldness and had to shake the thought away because he didn’t like where it was going.

“I never wanted this for you, Spencer,” she continued. When he focused on her, her expression was tender and doting, not jaded as he expected. “I wished I could’ve changed this tradition before it ensnared you, but that wasn’t within my power. Maybe _you_ will be the one to change it.”

She surprised him with that. But it was the same suggestion Aaron made when he said that leaders like Spencer allowed the tradition to perpetuate itself despite its unpleasantness. He was a king, after all – why wouldn’t he be able to change this?

“But I did what I could to make it easier for you.” Diana watched him absorb her words. “I gave you time. Time to become the thoughtful man you are. Time to grow strong under the mantle of your leadership. Time to find love on your own and understand the vagaries of it for yourself.”

Again, Spencer wondered if Diana knew the extent of his connection with Aaron. He wondered if she understood it was _love_ , and how hurtful this decision was to them.

“Finding a spouse for you, at this point in your life, I knew you’d be better prepared to handle the situation than you would at, say, eighteen. You’ve become considerate and careful. And you’d worry over it. Which I can see you are, son. Believe it or not, it’s a relief to see you worry about her.”

He ducked his head down, but she ducked her eyes as well to keep looking at him. And she smiled as if she was tremendously proud of him. How could she be proud of him for _this?_

“You should know that choosing the Princess was an arduous task,” Diana huffed. “It took nearly a year to sort through the applications, and evaluate the candidates…”

“A… a year?” He was shocked. Diana nodded.

“Your kingdom is large with vast assets. When I put out the call, many answered. I had to consider political and economic implications, of course, but I was far more concerned about character.”

Spencer’s eyebrows slowly rose. He wondered about the Princess’s character constantly; certainly more than whether she was pregnant or not. It suddenly occurred to him that his mother might be his greatest asset in this negotiation. Her love and respect for his ambitions would always be paramount in her mind, even in selecting his wife.

“The Princess,” she said haltingly, considering her words for a moment. “Is someone I chose because I believe she has the potential to become a genuine partner to you, beyond the bedroom. Someone to confide in, shoulder burdens with, someone who could stand beside you and present a united front to our people. Together, you and she might become the symbol of progressive royalty.” 

Diana sighed deeply. 

“You know I’ve long thought royal houses will eventually fall victim to modernity. We’re out of step with the people we govern. If we don’t evolve, one day the people will decide they can do without us. Maybe you and your Queen can change that in this kingdom at least. There’s _so much_ work to be done, Spencer. So much good work I know you want to achieve…”

She reached out and squeezed his hand, and he swallowed down the heaviness that always accompanied her belief in him. It bolstered him – of that there was no doubt – but it was also a tremendous responsibility that defined his life. Sometimes, late at night, he lay awake and imagined who he’d be if he wasn’t a king. What options would suddenly open up to him?

Then he thought about Diana’s vision for him, and all of her planning. Her judgment and intelligence surprised many over the years. Spencer felt she would have been a formidable queen if she’d been given the opportunity. But she’d married into the royal household, and when her husband died with his heir too young to take the throne, she became a regent, not a true queen. And though she still held the title until Spencer unveiled his bride, it never held the same power as his did, because she was not of “his people”, even though she essentially ruled them for a decade. She squeezed his hand again and he looked up. Then she winked at him.

“I’ve heard whispers, you know…”

His mouth dropped open.

“You still spend evenings with her even when it isn’t mandated.”

“Mom!”

“What?” She affected innocence and patted his hand. “I’m the old Queen and soon to be replaced, but I still have some power within these walls.”

“Mother, stop.”

“ _That_ is the way to win your wife, Spencer. _That_ is why I wouldn’t let you be married off at eighteen. You must learn about one another. And, yes, I know the embargo forbids that in technical terms, but it cannot stop natural curiosity. Even within the strict boundaries of the veiled marriage, I knew you’d find a way to discover her as a person. I raised you to be that way. You must strive to make her your partner, son. Earn her respect, her loyalty, and perhaps even her love. Let her have a purpose beyond being an heir-bringer.”

She smiled at him. “But an heir would be nice as well. If you two are spending so much time together, I’m sure that won’t be an issue for long.”

“Mother!” Why couldn’t she _stop_ nudging at his sex life?

“I didn’t anticipate you’d be so compatible that way… who knew, huh?” Diana winked. Spencer felt like slithering under the table until the servants came to sweep him up.

“Please stop… imagining that. Please,” he begged. “That’s not helpful. And it’s not… we don’t… that isn’t…”

How could he explain that some nights they met and didn’t do a thing? There had been several evenings since the Princess proposed their standing agreement, and yet most of them they hadn’t included sex at all. Spencer now viewed their nightly visits as a silent refuge from the chaos of his days. It was suddenly titillating to be in a room with her and _not_ be naked, and he hadn’t expected that. One night he arrived to find her curled on a sofa by the fireplace reading, and he’d been so charmed by the simplicity of it that he joined her. He awoke hours later to find they’d nodded off leaning against each other, their books tumbled together in her lap. Another night, she showed up with a Scrabble board and they spent hours in silent, fierce competition on the carpet, both bent on destroying the other with their words. Yes, there were a few nights when they had sex, and they took their time with each other. He felt dizzy and confused by it, and the pang of her absence afterwards. He wasn’t sure if he was being lulled by lust, or if it was the spark of something else, and that worried him. But the dynamic of their revised relationship had considerably shifted away from sex.

“I’m trying, Mom,” he stuttered out eventually, face flaming. “I’m trying to make it work. Trying to let her be more than…”

“More than her body?” Diana asked, and Spencer nodded miserably. She patted his hand again. “You will, son. I believe it. And after a prince or princess arrives, the pressure will be off. You two can be… however you want to be. No one will worry about it any longer.”

Was she telling him that he could fall for her _after_ they had a child? Or was she suggesting he could take a lover? That they both could take other lovers. That maybe he could return to Aaron…

He turned his hand under hers and clasped it tightly. “Did you ever love him, Mom? Father, I mean. I don’t remember the two of you together too often…”

Diana blinked rapidly for a handful of seconds and then gave him a look he knew well, the kind that told him she was giving her answer serious thought before speaking.

“Your father gave me a great opportunity when he selected me as his consort. There were prettier candidates, and wealthier ones. And there were certainly ones from more noble houses than mine. In choosing me, he gave my family a measure of safety. He made sure my parents lived comfortably for the rest of their lives. And he also gave me access to resources and education I couldn’t have dreamed of back on my provincial estate. It was a lot for an awkward, ungainly twenty-year-old to receive.”

Spencer squeezed her fingers tightly. He didn’t like when she put herself down. To him, she was the definition of regal grace and intellect, though he understood that she was considered too tall to be feminine, too practical to be alluring, and too well-educated to be comfortable.

“I thought when I arrived that he must have _seen_ something in my biography that spoke to him somehow. Something nascent or fundamentally attractive to him.” She snorted softly and smirked. “I didn’t realize that it wasn’t his choice at all. His parents chose me, and he didn’t know anything about me except for the date of our wedding. I imagine his parents chose the way they did because they assumed my family would be too grateful for the consideration to complain about anything that happened afterwards.”

Spencer gasped quietly. “Was he… hurtful?”

“No, no,” Diana shook her head. “But he… wasn’t interested in having a family. In fact, I don’t think he was interested in any kind of intimacy, period. But he knew his duty, so he did what he had to.”

“Oh, Mom…” Spencer said quietly as his chest tightened when he considered how alone and upset she must have been back then, realizing her husband didn’t want her.

“Yes. I don’t think I ever told you this, but I was veiled for nearly six months before I got pregnant with you.”

“Six months?” And suddenly he was appalled that she had to live silently that long with her broken heart. But Diana just smiled at him.

“It took considerable patience to bring you into this world,” she hushed.

“So… so that’s the reason why I don’t have any siblings, isn’t it? He wasn’t interested.”

Diana’s smile faded. “I wanted more children, and for a time, William indulged me. But he became frustrated when it didn’t happen immediately, and… he just stopped making an effort. He told me that we had you, and that was enough. He had his heir.”

“Selfish,” Spencer growled and pulled his hand away from Diana. His allegiance would always be with her, even if his father had been a kinder man. “All that talk of duty, but he didn’t care about his duty to _you_ , your happiness.”

Diana let him have his anger for a moment, and then she continued as if it never happened. 

“William was very cerebral and objective, and in time I came to respect that about him. He had a brilliant mind, you know.” A smile curled her mouth for an instant and then it was gone. “He encouraged me in my education, my various degrees and social initiatives. I believe it made him proud to have a well-read, politically-savvy wife, especially since he wasn’t good at scheming or handling personalities. He left that to me. But in all our years together, I never cracked his heart. And then he died young.”

She shrugged as if it were something that happened to a character in a book.

“He gave me opportunity, wealth, station, and a son I adore beyond all belief.” She smiled at him brilliantly. “I have a lot to be thankful for.”

“But no love, Mom,” Spencer whispered.

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that.” She gave him a cheeky look that floored him. Since when was his mother _cheeky_? “I’ve had my fair share of love. But a mother doesn’t speak of that with her child.”

“But you get to make insinuations about MY love life?” he huffed.

“Just until you have a baby, dear, then I’ll leave you to your own devices,” she waved his concern away. 

Spencer sighed long-sufferingly at her, which only seemed to delight her further. She was being a real handful this morning.

“But the point of my life has been preparing you for the throne, son, and solidifying your reign. Which is why the selection of your wife was so vital, and why you must give it your all, Spencer.” She grasped his hand again and held it tightly. “It will be the most important thing you ever do as King. Creating a lasting partnership with her will give you the stability to face every challenge that comes at you. This position is too immense for one person to handle alone. Your father never understood that, and it’s why he never really achieved anything during his reign. Make your Queen a part of your power, and you two will be solid as granite when change seeks to stymie you.”

Spencer looked down at his congealed breakfast and nodded. Diana’s advice made sense, and a part of him trembled at the possibility of sharing his burdens with someone and benefitting from their strength. Wearing the crown had never been easy for him, but he always secretly thought _the person_ who gave him strength to go forward was Aaron. If he turned to his Princess for that now, what would that mean for Aaron? How could he love him and give this vital part of himself away to another?

“Oh, my beautiful boy, don’t look so glum,” Diana said warmly, drawing his eyes back to her. “From what the servants tell me, you’re well on your way to that partnership.”

He grumbled loudly and hoped she felt his umbrage at her less-than-subtle snooping.

“And don’t worry about Aaron. I have a feeling he’ll find his way as well.”

Spencer’s gaze focused on Diana, but she looked back serenely, giving nothing away.

“It’s just a feeling, mind you. But I have incredible faith in both of my boys. I raised two fine men.”

It was in that moment Spencer wondered if _Aaron_ figured into Diana calculations for his arranged marriage, as much as politics, money, or personality. It certainly appeared as if she considered every variable and hoped to achieve as much contentment across the board as she could manufacture. Her scheming took on breadth and scope in his mind suddenly, and he felt both proud and a little intimidated by his beloved Queen Mother.


	7. Chapter 7

Spencer felt ridiculous lurking in the hedgerows of the palace gardens at seven in the morning. In the rain. _Without_ a guard. Aaron was going to explode when he found out. But he wouldn’t have let Spencer go if he knew his plan was to stalk his wife. So, Spencer neglected to tell Aaron. Just as well anyway; it was cold and miserable out. He’d all but decided to go back and have a hot shower instead when he saw Jareau’s bouncy blonde ponytail flicker through the branches at a distance. He took a breath and calmed himself, waiting a few beats before wandering out onto their path ‘by accident’. It was all going to work out fine.

Jareau pulled up with a hiss, bracing her body before a black-clad figure behind her. Then she recognized him and formally bowed.

“Your Majesty.”

He nodded his head, not being permitted to speak in the Princess’s presence, and then turned to face them both. The best part of this plan was Jareau couldn’t question why he was there, because he couldn’t answer her. He waved at them, and the black figure waved back. He was thrilled. Jareau glanced between them with an uncertain expression; she _knew_ the King wasn’t waving at her.

“Uh… we were just running, my lord. Trying to get it in before the weather gets any worse,” Jareau said.

The Princess stepped around Jareau and Spencer got a look at her. Her running outfit was demure and high quality, almost the same as Jareau’s. But the fit was very close – little was left to the imagination. Spencer realized this was the first time he’d seen her in anything other than sleepwear, and she was still alluring when swathed in identity-obscuring Lycra. His face warmed and he was glad of the rain and cold, so that they wouldn’t notice it. How embarrassing for a King to blush… He swirled a hand around his face and then pointed to the Princess, or at least at the skin-tight mask she wore.

“Yes. Well, apparently the veils have an unacceptable drag coefficient, my lord,” Jareau said dryly, and Spencer suppressed a laugh. He wondered if she’d done the math on that, and if she had, that was _amazing_. “The Princess has times and distances she wants to meet, and clothing must be considered even when there’s little risk of her running into you, Your Majesty.”

That was close as the guard could get to asking him what he was doing waiting for them in the bushes.

“Speaking of which, we must go if we are to make up any time on this outing.” 

Jareau watched his out-of-proportion grin and the way the Princess was standing, showing off the best version of her silhouette to him. Spencer could tell that Jareau didn’t approve, but he didn’t care. He was the King, and he wanted to see his Queen, out in the world with others around like a normal person. Even if they couldn’t speak and were both getting soaked to the skin. It felt important that he make this effort. But he also knew that it might make palace tongues wag, and that logically, there wasn’t much more they could get from this meeting than this.

He bowed deeply and backed out of the path, gesturing for them to continue on. When they jogged past, he stood straight and kept his smile in place. The Princess turned as they headed away and waved at him. He waved back like a goof until she disappeared into the gardens once more. It was silly, but he felt much better for having skulked around in the rain.

\---- 

He sneezed violently and reached for another tissue.

“Gesundheit,” Aaron grumbled from across the room. “Idiot.”

Aaron was angry about Spencer’s adventure in the freezing gardens at dawn. And he was angry at Spencer’s lack of remorse about it. And he may have been angry for other reasons too.

“I said I was sorry, Aaron,” Spencer sniffled from his desk.

“And you didn’t mean a word of it,” Aaron responded evenly, snapping the book he was holding shut. He strode to Spencer’s desk and handed it to him. “Here. This is the one you want. About sustainable engineering techniques.”

“Ah, thanks.” Spencer clutched the book with a smile. It was his smile of discovery, of revelation or realization of a great idea. Once or twice, Aaron remembered earning that smile from him.

“You can’t do that, Spence,” Aaron said quietly as Spencer flipped through the pages until he found the section he wanted. “Even within the palace walls, you require security at all times.”

Spencer raised a finger at him but didn’t look up from his book. “Not at _all_ times, Aaron. And I was perfectly safe. Jareau was there.”

Aaron huffed. “Jareau was there to protect the Princess. Those are her orders. A protector can’t have two charges – it splits their focus, their reaction time. If there had been multiple attackers, for instance-”

“In the palace garden? At seven a.m.?” Spencer glanced up at him. “Aaron, you catastrophize better than anyone else I know.” 

“Spencer, three years ago a team of professional mercenaries broke into this _fortress_ we live in and almost succeeded in kidnapping you. Despite the guards. Despite the extensive security measures. Despite all of our weapons and tactical training. You are _always_ at risk. When will you accept that? I’m not berating you for the fun of it – this is my job. And I’m a little tired of you constantly dismissing my worries. This is _your life_ we’re talking about.”

“And maybe I want to LIVE my life a little instead of always guarding it, Aaron,” Spencer snapped, and Aaron backed away a step.

A long moment of hurtful silence fell between them. Then Aaron murmured, “You want to live your life a little… with _her_.” Spencer’s irritation collapsed almost immediately.

“Aaron, that’s not what I meant. I just… sometimes I feel smothered. Sometimes I wish I’d never grown beyond that boy who ran unchecked through the palace like a street hooligan. Remember? We frustrated the staff and marked up the furniture and did whatever we wanted until someone physically reined us in by our shirt collars. It was great. No one ever worried about assassins and kidnappers back then.”

“I’m certain someone somewhere did worry about those things. We were just too young to care.”

Aaron saw a ten-year-old Spencer in his mind, still undersized and thin, grinning at him as he shuffled his thick, smudged glasses up his nose and yelled, _C’mon! Are you scared? Tough kitchen boy is soooo scared of floor lava… I can get from one end of this castle to the other without touching the floor!_ Aaron hadn’t been scared, and they broke a vase, two lamps, and destroyed a settee before someone stopped them. He pushed away the memory, even though he wished he could play the-floor-is-made-of-lava with that irrepressible kid again.

Spencer sighed and Aaron glanced at him.

“What’s the point of the power I have if I’m kept away like some sort of irreplaceable gewgaw?”

“You are irreplaceable.” It slipped out of Aaron before he could stop it. Spencer’s face pinked up, and that sight made Aaron’s stupid heart ache.

“The point is, I need to be able to take risks. I need _room_ for that. Slipping out without a guard this morning is emblematic of that. Wrapping me up in safety – to protect me from everything – well, it won’t make me a better king.”

“It might make you a less dead one,” Aaron said, and arched an eyebrow at Spencer when he pulled a face. 

“I wanted to see her, okay? Without a bunch of questions about whether I should or not, or if it broke any dumb rules. I wanted to see her being who she really is, and not the woman she thinks I want her to be when we meet. I wanted her to know that I’m interested in that side of her. And that feeling of being smothered… I think she probably gets that too. Being hidden in fabric all the time and denied speech…” Spencer sighed. “We might have more in common than we think.”

Aaron took another step back. It felt like Spencer was telling him _he_ smothered him. And maybe he did. It was his job, but was that the only reason why the morning’s events angered him? Keeping a tight check on Spencer also kept him close. In the beginning it was fun, being friends, and later, lovers, who worked closely together. It fostered intimacy and made it feel like a natural progression of their childhood antics. Spencer brought Aaron everywhere, told him everything; they couldn’t have been any closer. But Aaron wasn’t allowed to _have_ Spencer, not anymore, and yet he was still trying to hold him as close as ever. He’d heard the palace rumors about the King visiting the Princess each night, when he wasn’t required to do so. Spencer never mentioned it, but he wouldn’t if he was falling for her. It would be too confusing to negotiate. Aaron tried not to think about how quickly this was happening, how swiftly Spencer had moved forward into this new role of husband. Perhaps he was right: Spencer needed room to risk in order to be a great king, and it was within Aaron’s power to give him that opportunity. It was maybe the only power he had left in this situation, and how he used it would determine a lot.

“Okay,” he sighed and nodded. Spencer looked at him, his forehead creased in confusion. “You’re right. Sometimes I only see things through the lens of security. But you aren’t a Ming vase, you’re a person. You need to live as well as be safe.”

Spencer’s expression lit up a little, and dammit, if that didn’t do unpleasant things to Aaron’s pulse.

“We can pull back a little within the palace walls. But this doesn’t apply to your public appearances, and you can mope as much as you want about that, it won’t change my mind.” He raised a finger and wagged it at Spencer, who looked suitably instructed and resentful. “If you choose to go somewhere in the palace unescorted, you must inform the guard on watch of your destination.”

Spencer began to object but Aaron silenced him with a scowl. He wondered how many others could get away with interrupting and scolding the King.

“Think about it, Spence. If there were an attack, or a fire, or a medical emergency of some kind, we’d have to know where to look for you. You can’t ask us to fly blind in this. Don’t make it harder than it has to be to do our jobs.”

“Agreed,” Spencer mumbled as he slouched back into his chair.

“Okay. I’ll inform the rest of the Guard of the revised protocol. They won’t be happy about it but… you are the King. We hope you’ll use your discretion wisely.”

“I’ll try,” Spencer said quietly, and Aaron felt there was a lot he _wasn’t_ saying behind those two words. It made his chest hurt, so he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

“I have to see to a few things. Morgan will be outside the door if you need him.”

“Aaron,” Spencer called out, and when Aaron turned back, he was walking towards him quickly, expression concerned. “I’m not trying to shut you out. You’re the only person I rely on absolutely. No one’s closer to me than you, and… that’s the source of my strength.”

Aaron blinked at his words, not knowing how to respond. Then Spencer reached out and clasped his hand. The contact felt like they were on fire; Spencer went out of his way to avoid touching him since the wedding.

“I can’t lie to you. I like her – I’m starting to like her – and that’s what this morning was about. I didn’t tell you because… I didn’t want you to stop me, and I didn’t want to hurt you with what this might imply about me and the Princess.”

Spencer’s fingers squeezed his and it had a mirrored effect in Aaron’s chest.

“That’s not… I told you…” Aaron choked and tried again. “You can’t base decisions like that on my feelings. I’m not… I knew the intimacy would have an effect on you. I can’t expect you to be other than who you are.”

Aaron glanced down at their clasped hands and privately soaked it in. God, he missed him.

“I wasn’t sure it would turn out this way, but I suspected it might…”

“That I’d like her?” Spencer whispered, shuffling closer. Aaron nodded, never looking away from their hands.

“There’s something about her. I couldn’t label it for you, but I felt it from our first meeting, and it’s only become more apparent in the time since then.”

“Aaron…” Spencer stepped close enough that Aaron could feel his heat through his uniform.

“Don’t,” he whispered back. “Please, Spence.”

“I don’t know what to do here,” Spencer breathed and squeezed Aaron’s fingers again. “I feel like I’m being split in two…”

“Be a good husband to her,” Aaron mumbled, and then backed away, disentangling their fingers. “And I’ll try to be a better friend to you.”

“A _better_ friend?” It came out sounding wet and disbelieving. “That’s not possible, Aar. You’re the best friend a lonely kid could ever ask for. You always have been.”

Aaron fought a smile and lost. He looked at his King and saw the boy who’d become his whole life.

“You weren’t the only lonely kid around,” he said softly, bowing and making a quick exit to the hall before he went ahead and ruined everything.

\---- 

Aaron lay awake in his darkened rooms and stared down another long night of insomnia. He could’ve made use of his lack of sleep by catching up on his reading or personal projects, but there’s only so much energy given to a person in a day, and all he had left was enough to stare at the ceiling. And to remember.

Sometimes he barely recognized his rooms and their spartan furnishings. They were orderly and muted, and he didn’t feel that they really represented him at all. In the previous five years, Aaron had spent more nights in Spencer’s apartments than his own. Maybe the furniture and books and things had once suited him, but now he yearned for Spencer’s clash of rich colors, the golden light he insisted on for reading, and his crippling number of books that he determined _must_ share his living quarters and not one of the seven libraries of the palace. Dickens and Aristotle and Rilke. Dante and Shakespeare and Dick. His graphic novels and his treatises on humane economics. His cheesy _Star Wars_ novels and his battered _Choose Your Own Adventure_ collection. Aaron felt _that_ was where he lived in his mind. But maybe it was just the after-effects of love. Maybe some day his order and tones of ivory and beige would suit him once more. When Spencer wore off.

The idea made him whine quietly and reach for the striped shirt he kept tucked under his pillow. He pulled it out and shamefully pressed it to his face, breathing deeply. It didn’t really smell like Spencer anymore, and its effect was purely psychological at this point. Like an addict hoping that another hit will save them from pain. He knew he had to throw it away – cut the emotional tie that was torturing him into sleeplessness. But he didn’t know what his life looked like beyond it. Today, Spencer asked him for space to change; maybe he had to give himself the same permission.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed, looking down at the wrinkled t-shirt in his hand. He spent a long moment contemplating it, lifted it for one last inhale, and then got up. He strode to the small fireplace in his room, opened the protective doors, and threw the shirt into the dying flames before he could change his mind. His heart boomed behind his ribs as he closed the doors and watched the flames rise and lick at the new fuel. He watched and watched until the garment blackened and flaked, and the fire eventually burned out. 

He sniffled and wiped his face absently, surprising himself when his hand came away wet. It was weakness… this… he was weak when he needed to be strong. Spencer told him today that he was the source of his strength. That was really something, and he couldn’t afford to fall short. So, he would put this weakness behind him, give himself permission to change and risk, and he would serve his King _that way_ with pride. He nodded to himself as he decided it.

Then he went in search of ice cream.

Few people knew that the frowning Guard Captain was a fiend for ice cream. Diana and Spencer knew, and Jareau had caught him sneaking around in the Head Chef’s freezer once, but that was it. He always did it late at night with only the appliance hum and freezer light to keep him company, and he always cleaned up as if he were never there. If the Chef ever wondered why her dessert supplies never lasted as long as she hoped, she had yet to make an issue of it. He hunted through the frosty, walk-in shelves until he found what he wanted. Tonight felt like a caramel ripple night.

He was halfway through a celebratory bowl, happily numbed by cream and brainfreeze, when he heard steps in the service stairwell. Before he could react, she was there, shadowed in dark veils and pajamas, half hidden in the kitchen gloom.

She saw him and made a shocked, “Oh!” before she could stop herself, and then they remained in their opposing corners staring at each other.

“Ummm, m’lady…” Aaron said, lowering his spoon into his bowl.

“God, I’m sorry. I thought I’d be alone…” She saw him attempt to get up and bow, and her veils swished as she shook her head and waved the courtesy down. “Please, Captain, don’t get up. I’m barging in on you here…”

She turned to leave, and he found himself blurting, “Couldn’t sleep?”

She half-turned again, her hand on the doorframe. “I got peckish.”

“Well, then you’re in the right place.” He gestured to an empty stool next to him at the work counter, and after a moment she came forward and sat. He got up and headed for the freezer again. “What will it be?”

“Well… I came for ice cream.”

“Excellent choice. We have a lot of flavors…”

“But, uh…”

He turned back to look at her and she pointed to the veils. “It’s hard to eat with these. That’s why I wait until everyone’s asleep.”

“Oh.” He thought for a moment, and then snapped his fingers. “I can fix that. What flavor would you prefer?”

“Uh, anything with chocolate, I guess,” she sounded uncertain, but he’d already grabbed the tub and a carton of milk.

He felt her gaze on him as he plugged in the blender, scooped the ice cream and added the milk. Then he started it up as he hunted down a sundae glass.

“You slipped free of your guard,” he said conversationally. “Who do I have to fire in the morning?”

“What? No, I mean… it’s not their fault. I’ve spent some time exploring the servant’s passages, and I come down here a lot…”

“Relax, Your Highness,” he smiled to himself as he shut off the blender and poured the shake into a glass. “I’m kidding. I’ve recently been reminded that I can suck the joy out of almost anything in the name of security. Late-night kitchen raids oughta be exempt.”

He returned to the counter and slid the shake in front of her, dropping a bright red straw into it with a flourish. “Speaking of sucking, will this work for you?”

The Princess leaned forward and carefully lifted her veils over the glass until the straw disappeared from view. Then there was a very unladylike slurp and a soft moan.

“Man, that’s good…”

“I’m glad,” he chuckled, and went back to his stool and his ice cream. They ate in silence for a minute before she spoke again.

“You know, I think just now is the first time I’ve seen you smile, Captain.”

“I’m pretty sure it’s the ice cream, m’lady. It’s my Kryptonite,” he smirked to hammer the point home. “Or maybe it’s being here. You know, my mother was a sous chef in these kitchens. I practically learned to walk in this place. Of course, you knew that…”

“Why do you say ‘of course’?”

He stared at her veils for an instant. “Because you researched me. Are you going to deny that?”

She went still for a second. “I did a little research, yes.”

“Just like you researched the King,” he added. She didn’t respond. “I’m not condemning it. It’s a smart move. Know what you’re walking into it.”

She made an awkward noise, and then went back to her shake.

“So, you know I started life as a bastard son of a cook’s assistant. And now I’m the Captain of the Imperial Guard. What you probably don’t know is that both of those titles are the same to me.”

“Is… is that how you think of yourself?” she asked. “As a ‘bastard’? I’ve almost never heard that word used as anything other than an expletive.”

He nodded. “My parents were unmarried, and I never knew my father.”

“But… I don’t think things like that matter so much now. You can’t reduce people to black or white definitions that way. Society has moved beyond it.”

“Maybe outside the palace, yes,” he mumbled through a mouthful of ice cream. “But not here. Here I’m just a commoner who will never rise to the same station as my employers, no matter my effort or education. Blood determines everything.”

“Bullshit,” the Princess mumbled, and it made Aaron’s eyebrows lift.

“How can you argue it when it’s the reason why you’re here?”

The veils swished in his direction again, and he set his spoon down and gave her a challenging stare that he wouldn’t have dared to give a royal in almost any other room of the palace.

“This arranged marriage. The veiling business. None of this exists in wider society because there’s no need for it. Common people can see who they want, have any kind of relationship that suits them, have children with whomever they choose, even multiple someones, married or not. Can you imagine the social and psychological uproar that would ensue if arranged marriages suddenly became the law of the land for everyone? Nobility would be over in a heartbeat. People would riot in the streets at being reduced to sexual chattel.”

He tapped the linoleum counter with an authoritative finger.

“And that’s why it remains the dirty little secret of royal houses. Because commoner bloodlines don’t matter – let them fuck who they want. But royal blood…” 

He raised that finger and wagged it slowly. 

“It’s the only obvious difference between you and everyone else. Anyone can get rich on their own, anyone can use their intelligence and guile to achieve power, but the one thing nobility points to in order to distinguish their superior power to lead is their familial line leading back to a figure like Charlemagne or William the Conqueror. Blood is the thing that holds the delicate fabric of royalty together and lifts you from the rabble.”

He let that settle between them and then his private resentment moved him to keep going.

“The veils you wear, the consummation that was put on display, it’s all to prove the purity of the next generation, to make their hold on traditional power unassailable. It’s why you can’t make choices based on your desires and why the nobility is out of step with its people. People can make mistakes, but royal leaders have to be infallible, ergo they must be distinct from the common crowd, ergo they set up these systems to isolate them, and their bloodlines, from anything that could weaken their position.”

He took a breath, and then took a spoonful of ice cream to calm down a little. He wasn’t sure what moved him to be so candid with her and was certain that he’d be in a lot of trouble if she chose to make an issue of his views.

“Inside these walls, blood is all that counts, m’lady,” he concluded in a softer tone. “If you’ll excuse my candor on the matter.”

She sat and watched him in silence, and he began to wonder if she mattered enough to Spencer already that she could get him fired for this.

“Does the King know your views?” she asked.

“The King knows everything about me, m’lady. We’ve debated this endlessly over the years. Mostly during my law studies. For practice, you know.”

The veils huffed and her spine slouched a little. “Yes, I keep forgetting that you’re a lawyer.”

“I forget it too most of the time, if that makes you feel any better.” Aaron tried for a small smile. The Princess leaned forward, her hands clasped in her lap.

“What is your given name, Captain?”

Aaron blinked in confusion. “M’lady, if you’ve researched me, you know my first name.”

“I do, but I’m asking you for permission to use it.”

“It’s… it’s Aaron, Your Highness,” he said softly.

“Aaron,” she nodded. “You’re interesting. I think I like you. I wish I could give you my first name in return to show you how much I like you.”

“Thank you, m’lady. You honor me.” What else could he say to that?

“No,” she laughed. “I don’t. I don’t want to give you honor. You probably have more than enough of that already. I want to give you friendship, if you’ll accept it. And I know that might be tough with all the…” She made a wiggly gesture around her veils. “So, I’d get it if you don’t believe I’m being sincere about it.”

“I’m sure you’re-”

“Before you make assumptions about my _nobility_ here, how about you _don’t_. Friendship only works when the playing field is even. I’d prefer not to be a noble to you. I’d like to be a person instead.”

Aaron looked down into his bowl and really thought about that. Being an orphan, he’d always had a hole through the center of him. Though he treated his guards like family, rewarding their loyalty with loyalty in return, he found personal trust to be difficult. He trusted Diana, who was more a mother to him than his actual one. And, of course, he trusted Spencer implicitly. But beyond that, he couldn’t count many as ‘friends’. Perhaps you never really recovered from being a lonely kid. And like a light being switched on, he understood what drew Spencer to her.

“I can see why he likes you,” he murmured softly to the ice cream in his bowl.

“He… likes me?”

Aaron looked up and was again stopped by the damned veils. _This must be hard for them, trying to imperfectly guess all the time…_

“He does,” he smiled as he said it, though it made him ache. “But surely you know that. All the time you spend together…”

The veils fluttered in an obvious huff. “It’s hard to infer intent from games of Monopoly and nights spent reading together. You probably know my mind better than he does, and we’ve only had a handful of conversations. The silence is just… it’s a killer, I guess.” She reached out and fiddled with her straw. “But we did leverage it to our advantage for some epic rounds of Charades…”

He laughed out loud, imagining Spencer leaping around silently and unhelpfully as he struggled to illustrate a clue. “Oh, I’d pay money to see that…” He heard her laugh with him, then they settled again.

“Do you want to ask me anything else about that?” she offered cautiously, and his head snapped up in shock. “About… our time together.”

“It’s none of my business, m’lady.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Truly,” he stumbled, being caught flatfooted by her. “I don’t understand your question.” _She can’t know… she can’t…_

“Well, I’m saying… _if_ you decide we’re friends, you could ask about things that would concern a friend. If you were worried about him. Or me. Or how we’re doing, because I know that matters to you. It matters to me too. In fact… it would be kinda nice to have someone I could talk to now and again…”

She slouched a little and it struck Aaron that she was weary. Then he thought about her preparation to come here and face a new life, the sudden severing of her family ties, and the month of silence that followed, unable to confide in anyone. No wonder she seemed tired. She swirled the remnants of her shake idly with her straw while he waited on her.

“I know you and the King have been friends since you were ten-”

“Eight, m’lady,” he corrected without thought. 

It was seared into his memory: waiting in the uncomfortable chairs outside the Royal Infirmary until the doctor came out and offered his wrinkled, dry hand with an equally dry, “I’m sorry, son, she’s gone”. He couldn’t remember what he did after that until arms held him close, lifting him up high, and telling him in a close hush, “you’ll stay here with us – you’ll be part of our family now”. Then he was in an enormous, sunny playroom staring at a kid with too much hair and clunky glasses, his chin tucked in as he blinked back in shock. If Aaron could’ve felt anything other than hollow in that moment, the overwhelming newness might have made him cry. Then Diana said, “Spencer this is Aaron. He’s had some bad news today, and he needs someone to be gentle with him. Can you be gentle with him?” Spencer marched over like a dutiful soldier and took Aaron’s hand, chin still tucked close in case Aaron decided to turn into a monster on him. “You wanna build something? I’m making a scale replica of the Battle at Helm’s Deep in Lego.” Aaron blinked at him and said, “What’s a Helm’s Deep?” And that was how they began together; with Aaron hiding his fear in a sunny room mashing plastic blocks together while Spencer summarized the collective plots of _The Hobbit_ and _The Lord of the Rings_.

“My mother died when I was eight,” he reiterated quietly. “Diana took me in immediately. To this day, I don’t know why. I’d never seen her before. The King… well, he was a prince then… we were the same age. I didn’t know who he was either, but I met him the day I lost my family, and we’ve been together ever since.”

The Princess remained quiet until Aaron focused on her again. She’d stopped fiddling with the straw and seemed riveted to him.

“I’m sorry I got that wrong,” she said softly. “But thank you for telling me that. You and the King… I don’t think any research could accurately detail the bond between two boys at that age over that sort of trauma. You two are… unique, and I probably need to understand that if I’m going to fit in here.”

“Maybe,” said the hurt boy inside of him, watching his friendship change. But the man who surrounded that boy took over. “But I’m sure you’ll find your way regardless. You’ve already figured out how to catch his interest, and it isn’t with sex.”

She shifted on her stool and he wondered if she was embarrassed by his frankness. Based on what he knew of her, she probably wasn’t, but she was giving off nervous vibes nonetheless.

“The most valuable insights I have about him are from you,” she shrugged.

He felt the sting of that but continued anyway. “If that’s true, here’s one more: find a way to communicate with him.”

The Princess went still. “How am I supposed to do that exactly? It would violate our marriage contract. Are we going to stand on opposing hilltops and use semaphore? Or smoke signals? Don’t you think someone from the Embargo Secretary’s Office would notice that?”

Aaron sighed and rolled his eyes. “Don’t be so literal. There’s no need to pretend either of you hasn’t already violated the spirit of the no communication clause of your union agreement. I think everyone in this room agrees that it’s a ridiculous stipulation which is legally unenforceable. How would anyone know that you two weren’t talking up a storm during your evening meetings?” Aaron arched an eyebrow at her, but she didn’t give him anything. _Okay, fine._ “And use your imagination a little. The more cloak-and-dagger-y you can make it the better. The King loves a mystery to solve, and you still need to keep it hidden from the embargo pedants.”

She snorted. “Embargo pedants… well, I’ll take that under advisement, I guess.”

Aaron shrugged and scraped up what was left of his ice cream. She fussed with her sundae glass in silence, then suddenly got up and headed to the industrial sink with it.

“Leave it, Your Majesty. I’ll clean everything up when I’m done. It’s sort of a tradition with me. Mom never let me get away with a dirty dish. You can take the kid from the kitchen, but not the kitchen from the kid, I suppose.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

She placed her glass in the sink and headed for the staff stairwell, mumbling a “goodnight” as she passed him. He placed his spoon down and made a choice.

“M’lady?”

The veils turned back to face him.

“If you have another late-night milkshake craving, I don’t sleep much and I’m willing to serve.” He focused on where her eyes would be behind the opaque fabric. “Come find me.”

She nodded with deference. “Thank you for tonight. It has been… just, thank you.”

He stood and faced her directly. “It’ll be a good day when we can call each other by our first names, m’lady.”

She breathed audibly, and then said, “Goodnight, Aaron.”

He lingered after she left, took his time washing the dishes and setting everything back the way it was. When he returned to his lonely rooms, he didn’t exactly feel better, but he did feel as though he’d made a small space for change to happen.


	8. Chapter 8

Winter was almost done, but tonight Spencer could almost see his breath in the air, and he was glad of his father’s great coat around him. The heavy wool and dark mink fur trim smelled vaguely of moth balls, indicating its age and how it had fallen out of fashion. No one wore fur anymore – least of all a king – but tonight he was happy for the one useful thing his father left him as he sat on the cold, stone parapet and lost himself in the distant stars above. He used to do this with Aaron, ever since they were kids and sneaking out of their rooms late at night was still a great adventure. It had been a few years though. Their adult lives were busy, even deep into the night, and existentialist self-indulgence on the castle roof had fallen victim to practicalities. Spencer was pretty sure Aaron only did it because Spencer asked him to; both of them hunched on the stone ledge with their feet dangling over the edge of that five storey drop to the pavestones below. When he was young, Spencer’s stomach curled and rolled with the thrill of vertigo, and later, it did the same as he held Aaron next to him so close to the edge. But tonight, there was no thrilling curl, just questions and a nagging sense of imbalance. He almost went to Aaron’s apartments and asked him to join him, for old time’s sake, but then thought better of it. He needed to think things through: Aaron, the Princess, his reign, children, the prosperity of his people… there were so many questions, too many urgent conflicts. He was struggling for equilibrium. At least the stars were soothing, distant and unmoved by his life. He leaned his head against the stone turret at his back and sighed, tenting one leg on the wide parapet while dangling the other over the edge in reverence to his lost sense of adventure. His sigh looked like dragon smoke, and ten-year-old him was delighted by it.

The door to this section of the roof opened with s small creak and she slipped into the shadows easily, her silhouette dark against the stones. It was a new moon, and if he hadn’t heard the door, he might not have noticed her. She didn’t notice him obscured by the shadow of the turret and swathed in his dark coat. She walked to the parapet, and he held his breath as she spread her hands across the stone, and then slowly leaned her head back until the veils fell against her features and outlined them. Then she let out a long sigh that he could hear even with the distance separating them. It looked like dragon’s breath too, and he smiled before he could stop himself. She stayed that way for a while – holding the stone under gloved hands and leaning back towards the sky – and he couldn’t help but wonder what she was thinking. He was there to soul-search, but he had no clue what her motives were. A small, silly part of him whispered that perhaps she came here to practice her dragon skills…

He stamped his boot against the parapet, and she jumped dramatically, with her veils swishing as her head snapped to his direction. He raised his hands and then waved one of them at her, and after a moment, her body tension eased, and she gave him a formal bow that he quickly waved off. She stared at him for a length of time, and then he mimed sleeping and shrugged his shoulders.

_Couldn’t sleep?_

She sighed again and shuffled a few feet closer, leaning her hip against the stone railing. She shook her head and then pointed at him.

_No. You?_

He shrugged ambivalently, and then pointed to his eyes and twisted his fingers out and up towards the sky.

_Watching the stars._

Her head twisted to look at the sky again as if she hadn’t noticed it before. He tapped his boot against the stone to get her attention back, then he swirled his fist at the center of his chest and then slowly mimed pushing that swirl away.

_Calms me down._

He waited a moment and then leaned forward, straddling the parapet. He pointed to her.

_You?_

Her veils twitched and she didn’t respond. Perhaps she didn’t understand him. The rudimentary communication was frustrating for him; his thoughts were rarely simple enough to be reduced to hand gestures. Instead, he patted the stone railing in invitation. She watched that hand for a long moment, and the air around her felt _calculated_ somehow, but then she hopped up easily within six feet of him, swinging both her legs over the edge as Spencer’s stomach heaved with renewed vertigo. _She’s not afraid, I guess…_ Her spine slouched, and her hands curled over the edge of the railing to keep her in place, and she seemed to peer out over the grounds and beyond like she was making sure everything was in its proper place.

He waited for her to look back at him and she sighed once more. One gloved hand rose and spread across her chest. She shook her head, pointed at him, and then gestured to the roof.

_I didn’t know you’d be here._

He gave her an easy smile in response. Of course, she didn’t know, and he wasn’t disturbed by her presence. He wondered where her guard was. How often did she escape and go wandering on her own? He’d slipped his guard as well, and that sudden symmetry made his chest ache a little. 

They watched each other for a time, the wind fluttering her veil and ruffling his fur collar. It was all they could do really, thanks to the embargo. He hated the damned embargo. All he wanted in this moment was a chance to have a real conversation with her. Person to person. Why was that so dangerous? She shook herself all over after a minute, and he wondered if she was cold. Her coat seemed thin. But then she changed his focus when she pointed up and then swirled a finger around, shrugging as she glanced back at him.

_What are you looking at?_

He sat up a little straighter and thinned his lips in concentration. Stretching out his own gloved hand, he drew the outline of Cassiopeia. That was an easy one. Her veils swished in the direction of his finger, and then quickly swished back as if she wasn’t sure what he meant. He huffed and gestured she should shuffle closer, which she did without hesitation. That was something, he supposed. He leaned a little closer so that his face was just behind one of her shoulders. He raised his hand again, pointing past her to the sky, and she turned so that her back was curved towards him and her gaze followed his glove. He redrew the constellation and heard her breathe in as she nodded in understanding. She raised a hand and quickly connected Ursa Major. A soft gust of joy escaped him and rippled the veils along the side of her face. She turned back and he had no idea what she thought or felt in that moment. There was just the seeping cold of the stone beneath him, the scattering of stars around them, and her fluid obscurity watching him with care. But even as unbalanced as he felt, he couldn’t ignore the spark of happiness she’d pulled out of him just by drawing her finger in the air.

_I like you. I know I should be cautious but… I like you._

She shook again, and this time he saw it was a shiver. Then boldness took the reins without warning. He leaned back against the turret stone again, then he laid a hand along her arm while the other gestured for her to back up. He waited patiently as she considered it, then, quicker than he anticipated, she shuffled herself between his legs and leaned back into his chest. He felt tension thrumming through her as her weight settled along his front and his legs rose on either side to bracket her from the parapet’s edges. She carefully adjusted her head on his chest just below his chin, making sure the veils stayed in place. Then, after a long, tense moment, she let one of her hands drift to his thigh holding her safely from a long plummet to the pavestones below. It patted him, like a confirmation that everything was fine. And he breathed out deeply, letting some tension go with it as it plumed in the night air.

She kept shivering but where they met – her back to his chest – slowly warmed and her body eased as if the tension was from the cold alone. One of his arms curled around hers, the sleeve thick and bulky enough to ward off the night breeze, and they sat there that way for a long while doing nothing at all – just rising and falling as one when their breathing synced up. Eventually, she raised her hand and wiggled her fingers at the stars again. He thought he understood that.

_What others?_

He smiled and drew Ursa Minor with his free hand. No doubt she knew that one if she already knew the big bear… He drew out Lyra next, then Gemini and Cygnus. She didn’t respond, but it felt as if she sunk more deeply into him, her hands lazily folded across her abdomen as she watched his. He felt… contentment. Just the reassurance of her weight and the timelessness of the stars. Even the silence was comforting now. It wouldn’t last – his problems and worries were waiting in the distance – but he curled around this brief moment of peace and cherished it for its simplicity. He wondered if people could live a majority of their lives like this, or did everyone stumble from one drama to the next like he did? It was an idle thought experiment since he’d never be someone else, and drama followed him around since he was a child.

Without warning, she reached up and curled her fingers around his hand, pulling it to point at a bright point close to the horizon. He fisted his hand under hers, but she didn’t let go. Then his other hand rose and made a wide, oval path around their hands. The movement shuffled him closer around her, but she didn’t tense, and he warmed at the feeling of her tighter against him, even through his great coat. His hand traced the orbit around their fists a few times, but he wasn’t certain she understood. Then she lifted her free hand and raise two fingers in a V. He was delighted, dropping a hand to her arm and rubbing it in affirmation, his chest moving with a chuckle he tried to keep to himself.

_That’s right: Venus._

He should have known. Aaron mentioned she was reading college-level science textbooks. She was probably just humoring him with his novice introduction to the night sky. His arms wrapped her up in a sudden fit of connection he didn’t have the energy to fight off, and her hands dropped to cover his where they met across her stomach. Her breathing lengthened – he could feel it happen under his hands – and she didn’t seem troubled by the intimacy of him curled around her. She didn’t ask anymore questions or fidget in his embrace. It was almost as if she was afraid of the moment passing like he was. The wind shifted and buffeted them on the railing, and the temperature dipped.

 _It must be getting late,_ he thought, his backside complaining about the unforgiving stone beneath it. Maybe she sensed a shift in him. Her hands squeezed his and rubbed his arms until he released her, then he dropped one leg as she hopped over him back to the roof. He sat up and swung his legs so he could face her fully, his body reacting too keenly to the sudden loss of her heat and weight. He stared at her silhouette, the veils rippling dramatically in the shifted wind. She rubbed her arms quickly, and then tapped her wrist in an almost apologetic way.

_It’s late. I should go._

He nodded that he understood, but he wished he could hold her until the sun rose, until his body went numb from the stone. 

_I want a little more of this strange peace. I want to tell you what an unexpected surprise it is to discover you this way. I want… I hope we can keep each other, somehow. I want you to stay, to be a part of all this…_

There was no hand signal for that, and he’d be too awkward to use it if there were. She stared a moment longer and then used a gesture that he knew was sign language for ‘Thank you’. He grinned and waved back, wanting to be braver, to hop off the parapet and wrap her up in a grateful hug instead. Because she changed things wherever she showed up. In her brief time here, she was already changing things for him…

But all he did was wave. And she waved back and then slipped back through the creaky door, leaving him alone again staring at the outline of where she’d just stood.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates will be less frequent now that the holidays are over :(

“Here’s the mail.” 

Aaron said it absently when he dropped a stack of opened envelopes onto Spencer’s desk in his office. Then he walked away, scowling and ensconced in whatever caught his attention on his tablet. Aaron constantly tried to get Spencer to “go digital” but Spencer enjoyed letters too much to give them up. Even if he was never allowed to open them himself.

“What’s new in the world of security logistics?” Spencer asked just to have something to say to him. He flicked through his mail as well.

“Drones,” Aaron growled distractedly. “I really need to start worrying more about drones…”

“Like you don’t worry enough,” Spencer said under his breath, and then something caught his eye. He pulled an envelope from the stack and saw the Princess’s royal seal on it. He flicked open the torn paper and pulled the single sheet free. It read, _Possibly relevant to your interests_ , followed by a Dewey Decimal Classification code. There was nothing else, not even a suggested location. The palace had seven not-insubstantial libraries. 

“Intriguing,” he mumbled with relish.

“Pardon?” Aaron looked up at him.

“Nothing.” He folded the letter away and picked up a new one. “Do I have a full schedule today? Any gaps?”

Aaron flicked through some screens on his tablet with a frown. “You have some time at four…”

“Great. Block it off. I’m going to go to the library to do some research.”

Aaron nodded. “Which one?”

Spencer shrugged back. “All of them?”

Aaron didn’t bat an eyelash. He just blocked the time in Spencer’s calendar instead.

\---- 

The first two libraries had been a bust. Then Spencer decided to be more strategic. Instead of picking the most extensive collections, he thought about the Princess’s process. If she were exploring the palace, she was likely expanding her radius of comfort from her apartments. The next library he selected was the closest to her rooms, one that she’d have had the most time to investigate during her month-long stay. And, sure enough, he was right. The number led him to a copy of _A Guidebook To American Sign Language_ , and though it was a nerdy enough topic to interest him, he was surprised he’d never read it.

He found a sofa and sank into it, flipping through the pages and absorbing its contents as his finger skimmed across the text. His accelerated reading technique made quick work of the slim volume, and as he got to the end, he was satisfied at gaining new knowledge, as always, but wasn’t sure of the Princess’s intent with it. Then a sheet of paper slipped free to the carpet when he flipped a page. He bent to retrieve it, seeing hand drawn signs for conversational tidbits laid out with their translations underneath. There were phrases like, _it’s good to see you, can I help, are you well,_ and _please don’t worry_. He sat back with a huff and stared at the handwriting on the paper.

He understood her now.

\---- 

He waited for her in their rooms, unexpectedly nervous about his new skills. He smoothed his pajamas along his thighs and grumbled to himself.

“There’s no risk. She suggested it, and no one will ever find out. You’re being silly right now.” 

A door opened and she entered wearing matching midnight blue veils and a satin nightdress. He was temporarily frozen by the sight of this new color on her, and the way the fabric smoothed her curves and caught highlights from the fireplace when she moved. _She’s so… casually stunning. She must practice at it…_ The Princess saw him and waved, and then he remembered his manners and waved back. She walked to him and he stood to meet her, smiling and trying to untangle his fingers so he could use them. He held up his hand to get her attention, and then he slowly signed, making the gestures as clear as he could.

_Got your note._

Her veils puffed as if she was surprised, and she clapped her hands together. He was bolstered to try more.

 _You look beautiful this evening._

She gestured, _Thank you_ , back, and made a victorious fistpump that struck him as unladylike and delightful. He grinned at her enthusiasm. Then he tried something more ambitious.

_If we spoke here, no one would know._

She went still, and then she slowly began to form gestures of her own.

_I would know. I am following the rules._

The statement confused him, because this was very clearly breaking the no communication edict, and yet, it seemed as if the rules of their contract were important to her.

 _Don’t understand_ , he signed back.

 _Voices can be heard_ she gestured slowly. _No proof we signed unless someone saw us. No one can see us here._

Spencer sighed and nodded. The palace did have ears, though they were mostly benign, like the spies his mother employed. But still, the Princess wouldn’t have the same comfort level about that as he did. He raised his hand in an okay gesture that told her he understood.

 _Glad you suggested this,_ he continued and gave her a genuine smile. _Fun and useful._

 _You picked it up fast._ She cocked her head in a way that suggested she was impressed. Spencer felt a blush bloom over him in the dim light.

 _I have an E-I-D-E-T-I-C memory,_ he spelled out. _I see things and never forget them._

This seemed to shock her. _Really?_ He nodded. _Incredible._ He shrugged.

 _Did you already know how to sign?_ he asked when she seemed stuck. 

_No. But I have a lot of time on my hands. I get bored._

His pulse quickened a little for no reason other than she sought out new things to learn rather than sit around and mope. It felt like a delicate thread of kinship between them, though there was no way she could know that. He stepped closer to her.

 _Don’t want you to be bored,_ he signed quickly. Her veils fluttered with a sigh, and then she stepped forward and took one of his hands in hers.

 _Thank you,_ she gestured, rubbing his fingers with her thumb. It felt nice and he didn’t want to break it, but he pulled his hand from hers gently.

 _I like you,_ he signed, slightly embarrassed at how this new language was forcing him to be so blunt. _What I know, I like. It doesn’t have to be about…_ He reached out and gently spread his fingers across her belly. He felt her tense for an instant and then relax against him. He watched her veils closely, wishing he could see how she reacted to this.

 _You don’t want sex from me?_ she signed after a pointed amount of staring. His blush flamed again, and he was too close to hide it from her. He glanced away and sank down into his conflicted mire.

 _It’s complicated,_ he gestured quickly, but she grabbed his hands and squeezed until he looked at her again. They were close enough now that he could see every breath she took moving the veils.

 _Do you have someone else?_ she signed and he was shocked that she’d leapt to that conclusion first. Perhaps she already knew about Aaron. All he had to do was shake his head, because, technically, he and Aaron were no longer together. But his heart wouldn’t let him. He wouldn’t lie to her or erase Aaron from his personal history. He just stared at her and did nothing. Eventually she began signing quickly.

_I like you too. If you only want a baby and a friend, I understand that. We didn’t choose this. But… I like being with you._

He felt his expression go slack in shock, and he became even more confused. She’d given him a lot to think about with just a handful of words. Then she curled into herself a little.

 _Please don’t break the contract,_ she signed close to her chest as if she were afraid of the symbols.

What? An odd possessiveness flooded him instantly. Why would he reject her? Why would she think that?

 _I won’t. Why would I?_ His gestures were fast and forceful. When she didn’t respond, he reached out and held her upper arm firmly. She twitched, and he remembered to be gentle, circling his fingers into her skin in silent apology.

 _You have done nothing wrong,_ he signed after a moment. _And I enjoy being with you. But it isn’t as simple as that._

He sighed and she returned it. Then she raised a hand and slowly drew it through his hair. He closed his eyes and enjoyed it for what it was. When she drew back, he opened his eyes and wished he could see her face instead of the veils, just to know if she was hurt, or sad, or hopeful… just a hint.

 _No, it isn’t simple,_ she signed. And suddenly he wished he could kiss her. A soft, tender kiss of recognition between them. They were doing their best with each other; he knew that now.

 _You are very kind,_ he gestured, and she responded by holding one of his hands, and then slowly drawing it under the veils for the kiss he wanted to give her a moment earlier. She was very close, and she must have seen something in him then that moved her. She released his hand and pulled on a band wrapped around her wrist. The fabric spooled loose into a long satin tie that matched her nightdress. He didn’t understand its purpose because she’d arrived without a robe. She held it across her palm between them, and then she made basic gestures, like they had on their first evening together: she pointed to the tie, then gently touched his temple and made a screen motion across his eyes. Then she mimed removing her veils.

_Oh._

Without her veils, he could touch her face, feel her hair, hold her more completely. He could kiss her. But he’d lose his sight, and this fragile new communication between them. The confusion in him flared up brightly at the temptation though; he couldn’t continue to deny that he was genuinely attracted to her. It was such an odd feeling to hold desire for two different people in your heart at once.

He slowly reached for the tie and lifted it to his face. She stepped closer and helped him cinch it comfortably. The fabric was smooth and cool, and completely opaque. A frisson of panic zipped through him at being so vulnerable, but he took a deep breath and relaxed. Aaron’s paranoia about assassins hiding in every corner was starting to get to him as well. He gestured, _Can’t see anything_ , in case she needed the confirmation, and then he heard the rustle of fabric.

For a painful moment there was nothing but the crackle of the fire. Then, a deep sigh, unfiltered and relieved. He held perfectly still and listened. There was a gentle swish, and then a solid line of pressure as her body pressed to his. Fingers tickled his jaw and he twitched at the suddenness. She held still and allowed him a moment before she stroked the line of his jaw up and then skimmed the crest of his cheek. She’d done this before – she liked touching his face – and then he thought, _I can touch her that way too._ He raised a hand hesitantly and moved forward into nothing. Her body tensed against him, but he readjusted, brushed the air and then felt a smooth strand glance his fingers. He clutched at it gently, following it up until he could cup the side of her head. His fingers skimmed down, outlining the shape of her until his thumb met her skin and he stopped. She was warm and he rubbed his thumb experimentally. His fingers curled through the hair that framed that warmth and it was smooth and straight. He twirled a strand around his finger and skimmed it up and down: smooth from end to end. He added that information to what he already knew and tried to fill in the gaps in his mental image of her.

She leaned a little against his hand, and his fingers returned to cup her, feeling the line of her jaw and the rise of her cheek above it. She let out a quiet sigh, and he cupped her closer. How long had she wanted to connect this way? You didn’t understand how important a human face was until it was denied to you. Holding her like this was intimate in a way that sex wasn’t. They hadn’t even kissed, and he already felt a closeness to her rising in him. His fingers moved down to her mouth, now hopelessly focused on the possibility of a kiss, and traced it until it fell open. He skimmed her lips lightly again, but then she caught the tip of his index finger between them and haloed it in warmth. His mouth went dry, and his breath came faster. He licked his lips and wondered. His pulled his finger back and then he extended it again. She sucked it in gently, tongue tickling it as it swirled, then she set him free. 

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted it more than her body against his, or the secret heat when they came together. Perhaps it was written all over his face.

Lips brushed his, open and with the barest puff of air. He twitched and then slid a hand along her satiny hip to let her know it was just surprise, not refusal. _Come closer…_ Her lips brushed his again and closed briefly along the crest of his upper one. It was almost nothing, there and gone again, but it lit him up so completely he couldn’t move or think. 

She didn’t return, and that broke his paralysis. His mouth moved to frame the word, _Please_ , and then she was back, solid and warm and centered against him with her fingers slipping into his curls. And it was soft, replete, like relief made real, and when he gasped, she slid in, curling close enough that their noses squashed together, making them roam and suck and breathe as one.

His hand on her hip slid around her waist, his other carded in her hair. Together they bent her until she was a solid S against him, and he could feel every edge of her. The rise of her thigh towards her hip, the dip at the small of her back, the twist of her as she tried to get more of him, her breasts soft but nipples hard pressing back at him through the simple satin. It was dizzying. He changed their angle and pressed in with his tongue, asking her things with slow, deep pulls, and receiving her answers with small gasps and curved lips and the soft scrape of nails against his scalp. There was just the fire crackling, the hiss of her nightdress when she moved, and the slip of them as they broke apart and came back together too quickly. It was pushing him high so quickly, and when she shifted and his arousal noticeably pinged against her thighs, he felt a blush scorch over him again. But he wouldn’t stop. It was amazing and private and really _them_. If he embarrassed himself by kissing her, he was fine with that level of exposure.

He slid a hand up her back until he found a strap of her nightdress. He pulled it down over her shoulder as he licked into her over and over. He wanted more of her, and she said she enjoyed being with him, so… he took a risk. Her hands skimmed to his upper chest and pushed him back, though he tried to bend closer and chase her with his mouth. She slipped from his hands and he gave up, aroused and bewildered, but then her heat was back as she cupped his cheek and gave him a quick kiss. _One moment,_ she mouthed against his lips, so he remained patient and waited.

The fire shifted in the hearth and there was a soft hiss above it of fabric sliding over skin. He was suddenly painfully aware of his own clothes. Though he was unsure what she was doing, he tentatively began unbuttoning his shirt, hoping. _Hoping to have sex with your wife_ , he thought, and then felt odd about it. But why should it be odd? Wasn’t finding a way to genuinely feel and be with her always the goal? _Yes, but how much can you give her when you don’t know who she is? Can you trust her? Can you let yourself fall completely when there is someone else on the periphery?_

His doubts were interrupted by her pressure against him again, her mouth gently taking his. When his hand went to her waist to anchor them, his fingers skipped over bare skin and he circled and squeezed it greedily as if he’d only gained permission for a brief moment. She sighed into his mouth and he felt her fingers brush his as she took over unbuttoning his shirt. And it was as if something was flicked inside him; his arms gathered her up and clutched her to him tightly. She gasped in surprise, but he didn’t let her go, sliding his head down to her shoulder, her hair tickling his blind face as he kissed her edges.

 _We don’t have to_ , he mouthed into her skin in a last effort to stave off the lust and get them back to something more like mutual regard. Her game, and the new understanding between them was revelatory – and the kissing was exquisite – but it was a fragile beginning he felt might be broken if they fell back into all they really knew of each other: their bodies. One of her hands was squashed between them, but the other quickly wrapped across his back and held him as closely as he was holding her. His breath stuttered out of him, skipping across her shoulder and neck, and then she nuzzled in so her mouth tickled his ear, and her breath was unsteady as well.

 _I want to_ , she pressed into the skin below his ear and he let out a single note of surprise before biting it off. Then her mouth found his again and her kiss was incendiary, no more gentle searches and shy nips. His mind blew out a lot of vital circuits all at once.

_She doesn’t… resent this? She wants to be with me? If we keep coming together like this, with no hope of creating an heir, what does that mean we are to one another?_

He kissed her back hard. While his mind dithered, his body went ahead without him. He was radically turned on by what she’d done – the signing, the understanding, and the close, secret intimacy she offered to him – and he fell victim to it, hands roaming over her hips and back, mouth hungry against her gasping. She pushed into him until her breasts were warm weights pressing back against his attempts to gulp in air. Despite that, her fingers wriggled between their crushed bodies, fighting to undo his remaining buttons. He moaned when she reached the bottom of the shirt, fingers quickly flitting beneath to skim his abdomen, then he pushed away from her to wiggle free of it before pulling her back too forcefully and feeling the electric shock of her heated skin against his. He ducked his mouth away from hers, burying it in the hair, skimming her cheek as he groaned, her curves unambiguously inviting him to touch and her hands scoring his back and neck in encouragement.

He felt her mouth at his cheek, and then felt it curve in a smile. Then he had no choice but to find that smile and kiss it. Without sight, he couldn’t know what it meant, but he hoped it was about joy or connection or even the surprise of synchronicity. His hands cradled her, one in her hair and one along her jaw, as he lapped hungrily. Kissing her was such a revelation; he _felt_ her through it in a way he hadn’t with sex. He felt her dare and reach, but he also felt when she doubted and when her body just reacted without consideration. It was shy and rough, tender and mindless, hesitant and confident – and he fell under the swell of it all, wanting to drown in the slip of their lips and their shocked breath.

Eventually her hands slid down him and hooked into the waist of his pajama pants. He tensed before he could stop himself, realizing they were well past being coy about this but still embarrassed that she’d strip him and witness how much he wanted it. She held firm for an instant, then pulled his pants down his legs, leaving off his mouth with a sinfully wet pop as she descended along with the last of his clothes. He felt unsteady without her heat against him and he wobbled, her hands landing on his upper thighs to bolster him as she crouched at his feet. His cock bounced against his thighs as he shuffled, and heat bloomed over his face and under the blindfold as he bit his lip. Then one of her hands left his thigh and he noticeably choked when he felt it outline his cock a moment later. Her fingers drew over him slowly, tracing the length and breadth of him like she was making a study of it. Then her fingertips circled his crown and slit as his body began to shake. He couldn’t think, couldn’t move, he just waited in his darkness, utterly vulnerable to her. _God, touch me more, touch me yes, anyway you want…_

There was an aching moment of this, like waiting in midair for gravity to kick in, then she gripped him firmly with her whole hand, tugging slightly, and the stunning slide of wet, tickling curiosity followed when her tongue traced his tip. He let out a noise that was halfway between a question and surprise, and his legs shook terribly until she bolstered one side of him with a shoulder. Then he outright yelped when he felt himself haloed by her mouth. And she sucked delicately, like a tease more than a purpose, wet soft sounds almost lost beneath the crackle of the fireplace but somehow riveting him completely as he struggled to breathe through it. One of his hands finally moved, finding her hair and burying in it, trying to push her closer as he silently mouthed, _Please_ , again. She took a little more of him, and then slightly more, and more… the sucking noises wet and filthy and with an undercurrent from her that he couldn’t _quite_ grasp. His fingers tightened in her hair, and she moaned softly, the vibrations trilling him until he lost his mind. His body screamed at him to cram himself down her throat, to be a basic animal and lose himself in it until her moans and gags and insistent tugs made him burst. He wanted to throw her on the bed and fuck her mindlessly, any way he could, until the pressure broke him into spilling over into her, hard and deep and fully as she bucked under him. He didn’t give a damn about children or the future; he just wanted her tight, wet heat and the impossible high of letting go in her promised. He wanted her moaning and sloppy around him – this beautiful stranger whom he was force-addicted into fucking… _She has to be more than this. You know she does…_

His hands flashed to her shoulders as he pulled away from her mouth with a strangled cry. She immediately went still against him as he shook and breathed hard, trying to wrestle some control back. After some tense moments, he managed to sign, _On the bed_ , and to his great relief he felt her move without much hesitation. There was the soft hiss of skin on fabric and then a gentle tap-tap that he supposed was her way of saying, _Come here_. He turned and stood at the foot of the bed, the blanket brushing his calves, so he knew how close he was. He was still shaky, so he took a few moments, just being and breathing. Then he reached out blindly with a single hand, searching until his fingers brushed one of her legs. She gasped but he placed his other hand on her other leg and held them lightly, fingers circling the rise of her ankles. Bending forward, he heard her gasp again, but he just placed a soft kiss on her calf, hands still lightly around her ankles. _Sorry_ , he mouthed against her skin, and she relaxed, wiggling a little into the blankets on the bed. _Okay_ , he thought…

He kissed her again, this time on her thigh, then he kneed onto the mattress, legs bracketing her. His hands moved, skimming her surface more to judge distance and position than to tease. He drew his fingers along her thighs, around her hips, over the dip of her waist, then one pinioned his weight on the bed beside her and he loomed over her, trying to imagine her on the black canvas of his blindfold. His free hand drifted until a finger landed in the middle of her below her ribcage. Her abdomen flexed, her body moved softly as she breathed in, and he swirled the fingertip over her skin as he lined up his target. Then he slowly lowered his mouth to that swirled spot and breathed her in. She shifted gently once more, maybe a little unsure of him, so he kissed that spot above her belly, slowly and with a reverence their limited relationship hadn’t earned yet. He licked the warm halo he left on her skin and then mouthed, _Beautiful_ , which made her wiggle and utter a noise of disbelief. He smiled and brushed his lips across her again. _Don’t need eyes to see that._ Whether she understood it or not, he felt compelled to say it.

Her hand found its way to his tangles and massaged them until his head rose, his blinded eyes directed to her face. Then the fingers slid to his jaw and pulled him forward slightly. He went willingly, trying to figure her out, but then her grip changed again, skimming to his crown and pushing him down. He dipped and his mouth brushed the soft rise of a breast. He licked his lips and pressed into her gently, open-mouthed as she arched to give him more to play with. He swirled and slid over her, the soft warmth tantalizing him with mouthfuls he sucked and released, suck and released. Then her nipple brushed the corner of his mouth and he pulled it in with a smile, licking its peak until she wriggled and stifled a whine under him.

_Everything about this is miraculously strange. How has it worked out like this? How did two reluctant strangers find themselves drawn to this for their pleasure rather than duty?_

Her fingers tightened in his hair as she arched again, fighting to keep her sounds to herself which drove him a little nuts. She rose and fell as he lavished her, fingers circling and pulling as he lost himself for a time in her warm curves. When he eventually used more force, scoring her with his teeth, she broke and moaned, both of her hands knotted in his hair. His cock pinged, and the basic urge to take her swamped him again, but he shook it away with effort, leaving her with a lascivious suck and rising up until he blindly found her mouth. She lifted her head to meet him, fingers twined hard in his hair and half-dragging him forward. Then she crashed into him brutally, moaning into his mouth and taking his lower lip with her when she fell back against the bed. 

He struggled to stay above her, placing unbelievable pressure on the arm keeping him upright, and gave into the way she was demanding him over and over. This became its own problem when he found himself lightheaded and wavering dangerously. But he couldn’t pull away, gasping against her. He even mouthed, _kissing_ , into her lips when his thoughts narrowed to how alarming and fascinating and necessary it was becoming. She moaned softly and then rolled it into a chuckle, and he felt her mouth curl against him. He smiled back, an odd excitement tightening his chest at the sound, and he poured, _Beautiful_ , again into her mouth.

A moment later, his free hand drifted south, over the heated peaks of her breasts, across the tension of her belly, and slipping down between her thighs. She meeped once, quietly, and then pulled on his mouth deeply, as if she could direct him with that one point of contact. His fingers slid across her quickly, without finesse, and left damp trails in their wake and made him pop away from her mouth with a hush of surprise. His cock twitched again, the reverberations seeming to ring through him, and she shuffled and bumped his hand with a quiet whine. He stared down at where her face would be, but there was nothing but the darkness of the satin tie.

_I want to see you. I want to know the look on your face when we’re together, when we’re moving as one body. I want the intimacy of your reaction as much as the revelation of your kiss. Oh god, wife…_

She was ‘wife’ in his mind now, not Princess, or some official title. She didn’t have a name yet, but she wasn’t unknown to him. He couldn’t call her by something precious and private, but he also couldn’t call someone who moaned against him ‘Your Highness’. ‘Wife’ would have to do, and he hoped she didn’t call him ‘Your Majesty’ in her head when his mouth was at her breast.

He felt her huff, her fingers flexing in his hair. Perhaps he’d been still for too long. His mouth dropped open, breathing for control as he painted the blindfold’s blackness with his memory of her. Then he mouthed, _Wish I could see._

He pushed two fingers into her, and she arched and clenched around him. _Okay?_ , he panted, and her response was a low moan and a hand flashing down to his wrist to hold him steady. She twisted around him, thighs rising so he slipped in a little further while her breath hissed out in a long exhalation. Then her grip directed his hand to pulse, gently, slowly, and her twisting got more enthusiastic, and they both breathed out unsteadily together. He leaned hard on his bracing arm, head dipping between his shoulders and funneling more effort into his pulsing hand. He pushed a little harder, went a little deeper, and when she arched, she made a noticeable “uh” that sounded both hurtful and happy.

He was hard all over now, brought to the brink by her minute sounds and the wet slide of her against his fingers. She braced his arm with her legs, tightening as he continued pulsing, trying to evoke more noises, different ones… His own breathing was interfering, rattling out of him in open-mouthed rasps, and he knew his eagerness was leaking down on her making him blush again under the blindfold. Suddenly her grip yanked him hard and her hips pivoted at the same time causing his arm to unexpectedly buckle. He tumbled down into her with a huff of surprise and tried to roll himself so he wasn’t crushing her chest with his weight.

 _Embarrassing…_ , he pulled his fingers from her in an effort to reposition himself, but then her thighs were bracing his hips, one hand scrabbling between them and the other in his hair pulling him to her mouth. She kissed and moaned and kissed, using him rudely with her tongue and teeth – the need paralyzed him until he was still against her, letting her do what she wanted with him. Then her wandering hand found him and circled him snugly, and he yelped at the searing flash that lit him from tip to spine. He spurted in her grip until he bit his lip so hard to contain himself that he tasted blood. Then her tongue was licking that bite and breathing, _Now, please now_ , into his mouth.

There were no decisions made after that; everything was impulse. He grunted and pulled her hand away from him as he shuffled down between her thighs at the same time. He gasped away from her mouth, took a huge breath, and then pushed into her with his forehead against her clavicle and his eyes clamped shut behind the blindfold. He tried not to rush, tried not to come the moment he got as far as he could, and he whimpered when she made a small cry that vibrated where her chest met his forehead. Then he realigned his hands on the bed at her sides and forced himself up for leverage as he pumped into her. Her hands scrabbled to his hips, and she raised her thighs again to buttress him, and then she fell into his rhythm, sliding with him, adding force to every twitch and adjustment he made. He was breathing hard, stretching himself to get the most out of the sweep of their bodies, and his mind was on fire with her heat and her willingness and the quiet sounds she was failing to bite back. And he was already too close, so goddamned close that he worried he might pass into a point where he’d feel nothing but the excruciating need for release and yet not be able to accomplish it.

The bedframe rattled, the blankets hissed as they cinched, and they made muted noises as they slipped together and away. He was moving too easily, too quickly, not getting the kind of friction they both needed to trigger them. He whined and dropped his head against her shoulder, back arching, hips snapping relentlessly on instinct. He felt her arms wrap him up, inhibiting his movement even more, and her teeth sunk into his shoulder. What should he do? It would be terrible if they both came away from this unfulfilled…

But she took charge again in an instant and without warning. Her grip on his sides pushed him sideways, and then her hips pivoted sharply to do the rest. Before he knew it, he was on his side and he’d slipped out of her, then her palms were flat against his chest as she rolled him to his back and dragged her wet seam along his confused arousal. His hands clamped to her arms as he uttered an unformed sound of surprise, but it was quickly choked off as she rubbed herself along his cock until they were a sticky mess and he’d punched his head back in the mattress, biting his lip to stop from coming right there.

“oh…” It came from her softly, in contradiction to her grinding, and one of his hands reached up for her blindly. Her lips quickly brushed his open hand, but she wouldn’t let him touch her. He was confused for a moment until she lifted away from his hips, handled him roughly, and then slid down over him again with another, louder, “Oh!”. His hips shot up and he grunted, his entire being focused on the aching tip of him deep inside her. His energy was circling and pulsing toward that point, and he knew there was no stopping it this time. He sat up and clutched her close, fighting with her movements as she twisted around his cock and his hips thrust into her randomly. He smacked his cheek against her shoulder and groaned, then he chased the sound with frantic licking of her skin. He suddenly wanted every part of her inside him. Her arms wrapped him close again, and her lips moved wetly against his ear, _C’mere…_ His eyes rolled, and he tried to hold on.

She pulsed around him so soundly he could barely stand it. She was so wet, so hot and close… he couldn’t get any deeper and still he wanted more of her. He buried a moan in her shoulder, hearing her whine back in response and feeling her hair cascade over him as she leaned in. His arms across her back pulled her in as tightly as they could and he rocked them, so she depended on him to hold her steady, and he slid incrementally deeper. He made an animal noise when his cock pinged at the minor achievement, and his body tensed so sharply it took his breath away. She buried her face in his hair – he could feel her staggered breathing against his ear – and her hands pulled hard in his tangles, as if she’d lost control. Then she tightened against his sharp angles and stalled thrusts, trying to roll him deeper, but just gasping a high cry instead and she began to shake everywhere.

_oh god… please… I want you… I want to let go for you…_

She bounced on his cock and he had to close his eyes behind the blindfold and focus on _not_ giving into the electric urgency circling his balls. She breathed in hard, odd bursts against his ear, whining for an instant before biting it off. Then she pushed her face painfully into him, open-mouthed and desperate, and she unmistakeably mouthed, _SPENCER._

His release was so sudden and strong that he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t do anything but crush her to him as he thrust hard one last time and prayed he didn’t have a heart attack under her. He pulsed unbelievably, and she clutched him close, almost drawing it out of him with her whines and the roll of her hips and the spasms that drove him wild. It was a dominant pride in having her, the satisfaction of laying a claim, and the hopeless subjugation of knowing she’d wanted it as hard as he did. It wasn’t about fulfilling a contract. 

He clutched and mouthed her, spurted and gasped, frantic to give her everything. It was the purest, dumbest high he’d ever had: the joy of truly satisfying sex. And when he came down, that feeling lingered as his mouth roamed, and his teeth nipped her heated skin, and when she yanked him up by his jaw, it was in his kiss when he pushed into her mouth as they both got reckless about it. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t see her. She was all around him, he was still inside her, he could tell her how great she was with his hands and body and mouth. And she’d given that back in spades just by forcing it all into his name.

 _oh no…_ something timid in him whispered. _I think you’re falling in love with your wife…_

He collapsed back onto the bed, taking her with him, and kissed her until it became lazy and unfocused. They curled together, his fingers moving in her hair, his lips always grazing over her skin. She rolled against him, heated and smelling of them both, and her breath breezed his cheeks, his mouth, down his throat and across his chest. She was everywhere. When they finally slowed, their hands moving in gentle paths over each other like a meditation, he sightlessly found her neck and mouthed, _Don’t go_. He didn’t know what he meant by it, but she didn’t leave.

\----- 

They must have fallen asleep. He awoke to blackness, and lips on his. For a sleepy second, he panicked, stiffening at his blindness until she mouthed, _It’s okay_ , against him. He sighed, relaxed, and wondered what time it was. And he kissed her back, slowly and softly, framing her face with his hands. He felt her smile against his lips, and then she, too, sighed. A finger tapped his temple, and he got confused. Then her heat was gone, and the mattress dipped as she moved away. He almost called out to her. There was a rustle of fabric for a few moments, and the mattress dipped again, her hand landing on him to hold him still as she untied the blindfold.

He blinked in the gloom and took a moment to regain a sense of focus. She was kneeling before him, dressed in her blue satin, and her face once again hidden by veils. He huffed and must have made a face. She lifted one shoulder and dropped it casually, signing, _It had to go back on eventually._ He nodded. Then he took a moment and considered things.

 _The blindfold is fine. It lets me see you more clearly,_ he signed back carefully. _Understand?_

She hesitated and then unmistakably nodded at him. Then she gestured between them. _This is better._

 _Agreed,_ he signed back, and bit his lip. _I will be blind here so you can be free._

She went perfectly still, and he wondered if he’d messed up the signing symbols somehow. Then her hands moved.

_Close your eyes._

He was confused by the request, and signaled that, but she leaned forward instead and clamped a hand over his eyes. Then there was a tear of fabric, followed by her mouth on his in a searing kiss. She pushed into him when he gasped in surprise, and then his arms were around her, letting her do whatever she wanted as he fell under the tide of her pulls. Then, as swiftly as it began, she pulled away with a soft moan, and when his sight returned, she was pinching the veil fabric together over her face as she backed off the bed. He blinked, confused by her, and watched her rush towards the passageway leading to her apartments. He stopped himself from calling out, but waved goodbye, even though she never looked back to see it.


	10. Chapter 10

In the morning, there was a letter from the Office of the Embargo Secretary. Spencer opened it, unsure of what to expect, and even more unsure after he read its contents:

_Her Highness, the Princess Consort wishes to express her continuing gratitude to His Majesty, King of California, Nevada, Arizona, and New Mexico for his company, but regrets that she must cancel their meeting this evening.  
\- Office of Embargo Secretary_

Spencer made a face, and then a chill settled over him. Had he done something wrong last night? To him, it had been both frightening and amazing. Something was growing between them, he was sure of it, and that was no small miracle considering the severe restrictions placed on their marriage. But after reading the Secretary’s note and remembering the way she rushed out of their room, perhaps he’d been mistaken.

“What’s wrong?”

Spencer looked up and saw Aaron trying to unravel him with his eyes. 

“I don’t know,” he shrugged back. And he truly didn’t know. “The Princess can’t see me tonight.” He waved the note in the air as proof.

“Is she okay?” Aaron went neutral on him.

“It doesn’t say.” He sighed and looked at the paper again. “Maybe she just needs a break.”

“Maybe.” Aaron waited a long moment before continuing. “Don’t overthink it.”

Spencer nodded but wouldn’t look at him. He tossed the note in the bin to be shredded and swiveled his chair to look out the windows at the grey day beyond them. Maybe he was wrong about her, about _them_. Maybe he’d hoped it would all be easier now somehow.

Aaron let him stew in silence for a time before he interfered again. “Hungry?”

“Mmph,” Spencer mumbled non-committally.

“I was thinking about grilled cheese. With the applewood-smoked old cheddar, and caramelized onions, and the smoked turkey Chef made on Monday…”

Spencer turned his chair and gave Aaron a suspicious glance. “Are _you_ gonna make the grilled cheese?”

This was a trap. Spencer loved Aaron’s grilled cheese. He was a master at it. In fact, he was talented at a lot of everyday comfort foods that Spencer adored. Or maybe he adored them because Aaron made them – one way or the other. Either way, Aaron knew this and was setting him up somehow. Aaron just nodded solemnly about the sandwich. 

“Okay,” Spencer sighed. “But only because you’re making it, and it’s fun to watch you ruffle Chef’s feathers in her domain. It’s not because I’m especially hungry.”

“Or pouting,” Aaron added as Spencer got up and walked towards him.

“I am NOT pouting. Kings don’t pout.”

“Yes, Your Majesty, of course,” Aaron said straight-faced as he pushed Spencer through his office door and towards the kitchens. “Your face misinformed me.”

“My face is fine. There’s nothing wrong with it.”

“You’re right. My apologies for the confusion,” Aaron oozed with his most sarcastic deference. It was annoying.

“You know, you could enjoy this a little less.”

“I could. I will endeavor to do that, my lord.”

Spencer growled at him and Aaron smirked back as they walked through the endless hallways. It was horrible when people knew how to get under your skin.

\----

Aaron seemed to enjoy the royal kitchens more than any other part of the palace. He claimed that he couldn’t remember a lot from his early childhood spent in them, but to Spencer, it always seemed Aaron was most himself there, free from expectations and censuring glances. He moved around with a fluidity that wasn’t seen in his regimented Imperial Guard persona, and he smiled more there, joked with prep cooks and dishwashers, and seemed happier the more stains he got on his clothes. The natural ease that he exuded was probably the only reason Chef put up with him, letting him annex a section of the large room when he wanted it, and approving of his stained shirts and his _clean_ sleeves.

“A chef never dribbles,” Spencer overheard her berate a sous chef once. “A chef is purposeful with their actions – their sleeves should never drag through anything.”

Spencer had to agree: if Aaron was one thing, it was purposeful. So, he sat on the prep counter, angering Chef from afar, and watched Aaron attend to a fry pan of onions, wondering what he was planning right now.

“Have you brought me down here to give me advice? Is that what this is?” Spencer asked, nibbling on some pilfered cheese.

Aaron flipped the softening onions, never looking at him. “Why on earth would I do that? I thought you wanted grilled cheese. That’s why I’m here.”

“Honestly, Aar, sometimes I don’t know why you do the things you do. Even after you do them.”

Aaron looked at him them. “Really? Like what?”

Spencer sighed. That was a long list. _Like, why you came back here after college, why you pledged an oath FOR LIFE to me, why you decided to be with me when there was no future for us, why you’re still here now, why you care about whether things work out between me and her, why you give a damn about the conflict in my heart for her… god, Aaron, did you love me? I wish I knew. You never said the words, and if you didn’t, I can’t figure out why you did any of this._

He didn’t say anything, just tightened his lips to a thin line instead. Aaron sighed at him and went back to the onions.

“Do you want to talk about her?”

“Not really,” Spencer mumbled. What good would that do? He slouched, tried to steal some turkey, and got slapped by a spatula for his efforts.

“It’s been just over a month, Spencer,” Aaron was using his ‘extreme patience’ voice. “Ease up a little. This is a lot of change for anyone, you know.” 

Aaron made a gesture that Spencer should come over and stir the onions while he worked on prepping the sandwiches for grilling. Spencer shuffled to his new post and obeyed his captain. 

“You’re also… a little intense in relationships. At least in the beginning…” Aaron said it almost casually, back half-turned as he sliced the avocado. “Even without the ability to talk, I’m sure she’s a little overwhelmed by you. I know I was.”

Spencer forgot about the onions. He stood there gaping at Aaron’s back and couldn’t think of what to say or do next. Aaron turned and frowned at him.

“Spencer, onions,” he ordered. Spencer stirred the onions ferociously.

“I… overwhelmed you?” He started to feel nauseated. Maybe there was a reason why Aaron never said he loved him. He thought about their last time together, how Aaron had pulled away first. He’d said “enough”…

“Absolutely. You wanted everything right away. There was no patience at all. It was like zero to a hundred in one day.”

Spencer sagged. Christ, was he really like that? Now he had doubts as to why _anyone_ would want to be with him. A hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed until he looked up. Aaron was watching him strangely, as if this moment had already happened and couldn’t be changed. As if this was a memory he was reliving. His hand slipped away.

“It was wonderful, Spence,” he said softly. “But also kinda daunting. Just… give her some space when she needs it, okay?”

Spencer swallowed awkwardly. “You were always the patient one.”

Aaron smiled at him tiredly. He actually _looked_ tired. Spencer wondered if he was sleeping. Aaron was prone to crippling insomnia.

“That’s because I knew you from all those years spent weathering your chess tantrums and waiting for the next Harry Potter book to drop. Your enthusiasm is one of your best qualities, but it takes time getting used to it. The Princess hasn’t had that time yet.” Aaron went back to slicing vegetables. “And besides, I didn’t want to invoke the Wild Hotchner reputation, did I? I had no choice but to be the calm one.”

Aaron was talking about his mother, something he rarely did. When alive, the staff gossiped about her temper, her sharp wit, and her unrepentant wildness. That was the rumor anyway. Spencer heard it only in passing from his mother, and it took him years to figure out it was all code for her sexual appetite. For reasons Spencer never understood, Aaron held these rumors close, felt that they somehow predicted his character. It was ridiculous because Aaron was the most measured, gentle, reasoned person Spencer knew. And if he was privately passionate and fierce, well, that wasn’t the gossips’ business.

“Gossip has a shelf life, Aaron,” he murmured. “I don’t think anyone still cares what kind of person your mother was a lifetime ago.”

“ _I_ care.”

“Why?”

Aaron put the knife down but didn’t look back. “Because I didn’t want anyone to use it against me. With you.”

“You thought someone would object?”

“You’re _a king_ , Spence. If anyone found out… if they thought I was tainting you somehow… a bastard son of a commoner who slept around…”

Spencer dropped the spatula into the frying pan and grabbed Aaron by the arm, turning him sharply, hurt rising in him.

“Tell me you didn’t think that the entire time we were together. Tell me you didn’t… alter yourself because you were worried about what rumors might spread about _me_.”

“I’m the very opposite of what you should want-”

“Aaron! There is nothing ‘common’ or unwanted about you! Who cares what your mother did with her life? It was hers to live. You have your own and it is exemplary.”

“But still,” Aaron looked gutted for a split-second before hiding it under something safer. “Not good enough for a king. You had to be with someone else – someone more like you. People said it for years.”

Spencer let him go. Aaron huffed, and leaned in to turn the frying pan down, taking the spatula and scraping the onions into a bowl. 

“I was always aware I was never good enough, even if people never knew about us. The rumors about Mom would’ve fueled that if anyone found out. I did my best not to give anyone an excuse to go looking.” He started assembling the sandwiches, preparing them for the grill. It was as if he were discussing his list of duties that day. “It’s funny – the Princess thinks this doesn’t matter either, but you’re both wrong. Inside this palace – in this rare society – the circumstances of your birth are _all_ that matter.”

Aaron turned and gave Spencer one of the most serious looks he’d ever received. 

“ _She_ matters, Spence, and you’re extremely lucky if there’s even a possibility that the two of you could come to love one another. But it’ll take time and patience, as I’ve said. So, do yourself a favor and calm the hell down. You want a marriage that isn’t just obligation and resentment? Then treat it like a real relationship and _work_ for it. And by ‘work’, I mean quit being so neurotic about every little thing.”

He went back to the sandwiches. 

“Everyone disappoints you eventually. Don’t let it shatter your opinion of her when she turns out to be less than perfect.”

Spencer blinked at Aaron’s back disbelievingly for a handful of seconds, and then he whispered, “I can’t believe you.”

Aaron turned to face him, an eyebrow arched in confusion.

“All this time… you’ve thought you didn’t matter to anyone, to me… because of who your parents were? How could you _be with me_ and think that?” Spencer’s anger smashed headlong into his self-doubt. “And now you’re pushing me towards this ‘suitable’ stranger, who may or may not give a damn about me, because she makes more SENSE than you do. And you think the problem with arranged marriage is people like me, huh?”

Aaron’s eyebrows lowered and he crossed his arms. “Don’t be a child, Spencer. That’s a hysterical misinterpretation of what I’ve just said, and you know it. _This_ is what I mean when I say that you have to keep your neuroses in check when it comes to this thing with the Princess-”

“What makes you think she’d want me anymore than you did?” he sneered.

Aaron took a half-step back and seemed shocked by his anger. “What… what do you mean?”

“Well, apparently, all the time we’ve known each other, your opinion of me has always been colored by my status and title. I’ve never been just a boy, or a man to you. I’ve never been _like_ you.”

“Spence, no-”

“And since the Princess only knows me by my status and title, there seems little hope that something with her will be more successful. Like you warned me about: she wants something out of this union, and we don’t know what that is. But one thing is clear: no one wants me for _me_.”

“Spencer!”

“It’s fine,” he bit out, backing away from the stove, feeling hot and shaky like he hadn’t since he was a child. “Sometimes I forget that my life is about alliances and power-brokering. I start to _feel_ too much and want things for myself. But kings aren’t people, they’re icons, and they aren’t allowed to want for themselves. We have too much already, right?”

Aaron stepped towards him, but he avoided him, holding up a hand to invoke his royal right to shut down this conversation permanently. 

“Thank you for reminding me, Captain.” He turned on his heel and marched for the door, kitchen staff quickly avoiding him and acting as if they hadn’t noticed anything.

“Your sandwich…” Aaron called out behind him.

“You have it, Captain,” Spencer waved dismissively without looking back, his eyes suddenly stinging and his chest collapsing inward. “I wasn’t hungry to begin with.”

\---- 

Aaron gave Spencer time to cool off. He tried to sort out the mess he’d made in the kitchens, and when that was done, he marched back to face Spencer again. But as he approached the King’s private office, Morgan stepped in his way with a look of extreme discomfort.

“He’s asked for privacy this afternoon, sir. No interruptions from anyone. It’s his command.”

Morgan bowed his head, his impressive frame curved away from Aaron as he fought between loyalty to his commanding officer and obeying his king. Aaron sighed and let him off the hook for Spencer’s petulance. 

“That’s fine, Morgan. Carry on. I’ll be on comms if you need me.”

“Yes, sir.”

 _Well, that could’ve gone better._

Aaron slouched into his chair when he reached his office, inheriting his monarch’s pout. When Spencer struck out about doubting Aaron’s intentions over the years, a terrible rage rose in him that he held back with great effort. Spencer did that – hurt others when he was hurt – and Aaron understood that about him. But it was horribly childish and dangerous to provoke Aaron that way. Because Aaron _was_ a ‘Wild Hotchner’ just like his mother. It wasn’t a fancy, it was real, and he did his best to hide it from everyone. He hid the shame of his terrible need to be wanted, of the roiling feelings that ruled him when he wasn’t disciplined. When Spencer accused him of never wanting him as a person, it was all he could do to stop himself from bellowing back, _I’ve dedicated my whole being to you! I nearly died saving your life! I’m jealous of every moment she gets with you! Every touch, every sigh… What more could I possibly give? Should I carve my heart out and place it in your hands so you could feel its last beat? Every beat would be for you, you entitled, hurtful idiot!_ Even thinking back on that moment, the words choked him, the flashes of heat zipping across his skin and making him itch. He leaned into his hand, braced on his desk, massaging his temple to coax the incendiary rush back into a safer part of him.

“Bastard,” he grumbled, and focused on his breathing until his pulse slowed and he could visualize his impulses as smooth, undulating waves. He worked at the technique as he had for years, remembering his mother’s red face, vicious mouth and publicly-thrown pots, and swearing that he’d never succumb as she did. “I will not be broken. Not by a king, not by anyone…”

As he breathed, images floated behind his eyelids, some joyous and some painful. It was part of the process. But he landed on one that devastated him. 

A twelve-year-old Spencer, crying and with bloodied knees, curled into himself in a secret pocket of a cedar hedge in some forgotten corner of the royal gardens. Diana had just narrowly avoided a palace coup to overthrow them both, Spencer’s father being dead for fours years and the vacuum of power too tempting for most to ignore. Spencer’s tutor had lost patience with his distraction and complaints during his lessons and told him that he wasn’t a boy who was _allowed_ to ignorantly daydream his life away. In fact, he wasn’t a boy at all. He was a monolith, and no one cared about his feelings. The whole point of him was to secure the throne, and that no one would come to him without wanting something from him, even his mother. Spencer screamed and ranted, then ran from the schoolroom as the tutor demanded that he remain and submit, something that he’d never do. Somewhere on the grounds, he’d tripped over himself and scraped his knees, and that’s how Aaron found him: a huddled, blubbering, bloody mess under their secret hedge. He shuffled in beside him, wide-eyed and scared, because Spencer was his anchor, and he didn’t know what it meant if his anchor was adrift. Spencer hiccupped and gripped his knees tighter to his chest, his smudged glasses foggy from his wet gulps. Aaron watched him, terrified by his fragility and the blood dripping down his legs. Then he shuffled closer and wrapped an arm around Spencer’s shoulders. Spencer knocked his head against Aaron’s and let out a wracking sniffle that Aaron felt in his chest as well.

“I’m not real,” Spencer choked. “I’m not anything. No one will love me. Not even Mom.”

Aaron’s chest seized in fright. Spencer couldn’t disappear on him. He _couldn’t_. Aaron needed him. This was all he had left.

“I love you,” he whispered as he curled him closer. “You’re real to me.”

That was the moment it happened. The words came out of him on instinct, and they wouldn’t have a romantic context for years yet, but that was the moment Aaron linked his life with his scrawny, bespectacled best friend for good. The words gave Spencer something that day, a safe place to take refuge in, and in giving him that, Aaron got to keep the still center to his world that kept everything in balance. Spencer hugged him back, and they stayed that way until the palace guards found them at dusk. Neither one of them had any inkling of how that day with the vicious tutor would shape their lives. But a thirty-year-old Aaron sat at his desk and stared at the memory of those two connected boys and ached with everything that unfurled from it.

“You’re real to me,” he whispered to himself, and his gut twisted a little to realize it was still true.

\---- 

He strode into Spencer’s office the next morning unwilling to let another day pass over this nonsense.

“Good morning,” he grumbled, and Spencer’s chair swiveled away from the windows.

He looked… defeated. And suddenly Aaron was twelve and back under that hedge again, terrified his anchor was slipping from him.

“I’m sorry. About yesterday.” Spencer stood and knitted his fingers together. “I was childish, like you said. And… and I know what I said hurt you. No matter how old and experienced I get, I still lash out like a kid. It’s depressing. And I should’ve moved past that instinct by now, being a king and not-”

“You’ll always be a person to me,” Aaron blurted, and Spencer watched him owl-eyed behind his glasses. “Remember? That day I found you in the garden when we were little? That stupid tutor…”

“Miss Antoinetta,” Spencer murmured, nodding. “She was a shrew.”

“She was.” Aaron allowed himself a chuckle, then it faded. “And she was wrong. Monarchs are people as well. They have to be. Otherwise how can they make good choices for their subjects? You _always_ think about what’s best for your people, Spence. You always put them first. You could only do that if you genuinely felt for them.”

“But I can’t be selfish. I can’t want things like a child and then get enraged when they are denied to me. That’s not who I’m supposed to be, and I know what my purpose is.”

Spencer ducked his gaze and Aaron stepped around the desk until he was next to him. When he spoke, it was gentle.

“You can be a little bit selfish, Spence. You can expect love if you’ve earned it, like anyone else.”

Spencer looked at him, eyes magnified by his glasses until they seemed like they’d draw Aaron into them by the force of their gravity. _You earned it from me – it’s not impossible…_

“You can earn it from her if you want it,” he murmured. “And, I think given your reaction yesterday… I think you want that.”

Spencer closed his eyes, lines creasing gently at the corners, and he turned away.

“She has her own reasons for wanting this marriage, but I don’t think the possibility of personal happiness is excluded from those reasons.”

Spencer remained with his back to Aaron, so he swallowed hard and laid a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

“Everyone will come to you wanting something. That’s true. But that might not always be bad. What if she comes to you wanting _you_?”

Spencer’s hand shot up and clasped Aaron’s until his knuckles went white. Aaron choked back the jump-kick his heart made at it.

“Be patient and put in the work,” he continued shakily. “You’ll be rewarded for it.”

Spencer’s grip tightened until it was almost painful. Then he trembled a little under Aaron’s hand. Aaron breathed out, tried to visualize waves rather than the sharp-edged intensity that wanted to crush Spencer against him. He closed his eyes, moved a half-step closer until he could sense the shape of Spencer in front of him, and he bent his head to speak as close as he dared without kissing his neck.

“You’re always a person to me. Never forget that.” _Never forget me._

“I won’t,” Spencer whispered back, holding his hand a moment longer, and then releasing it and shuffling forward as Aaron’s hand slipped away.

He pulled a sheet of paper from a desk drawer and began writing without sitting. Aaron watched him as he bent in concentration. He watched the long fingers move as his slanted, looped script flowed across the page, and he remembered when those fingers moved the same way over him. Then he shook both the thought and the resulting despair away; it wasn’t useful. Spencer stood straight eventually, rereading his note, then he looked to Aaron and handed it to him.

“Would you deliver this to her for me?” he asked softly. “I don’t want it to go through the Embargo Secretary.”

The letter was offered unfolded. Aaron read the contents after Spencer nodded his consent.

_Your Highness,  
Please take whatever time you need. My concern is for your comfort and wellbeing. I, too, am grateful for the time we spend together, and look forward to seeing you again when you indicate you wish to do so. Please let my office know if you should want for anything.  
With deepest respect…_

“This is technically communication,” Aaron murmured as he folded the letter in half.

“Perhaps, but it’s pretty benign if anyone found out about it,” Spencer murmured back.

Aaron nodded. “No one will find out.”

He turned on his heel, chest tight, and marched out of the office to do his duty.


	11. Chapter 11

Another official refusal arrived with the mail. That was four in a row now. Spencer stared out his office window and tried to scale back the neuroses Aaron warned him about. But he was starting to doubt a lot and dread the morning mail. He just couldn’t puzzle out what had gone wrong. And, he had to admit, he was missing her…

“Your Majesty?”

Spencer swiveled back at Aaron’s voice using a formal tone. He was standing just inside the office doorway, looking very Guard Captain-ish.

“The Royal Physician is here requesting a few minutes.”

Spencer’s pulse sped up slightly and he tried to swallow the anticipation down. He sat up instead and straightened his jacket.

“Please send him in, Captain.”

Aaron nodded and disappeared, then a moment later the round, balding Head Doctor shuffled into the room, bowing before approaching Spencer’s desk.

“Your Majesty.”

“Good Morning, Doctor Patel.”

“Yes, uh, good morning,” Dr. Patel mumbled distractedly. The doctor always seemed slightly distracted to Spencer. It would’ve been disturbing if he weren’t so completely focused when called upon to act. The fact that he wandered into the King’s office like he was lost at a train station made Spencer’s pulse settle a little. _It can’t be an important matter…_

Dr. Patel stood on the other side of Spencer’s desk and waited. Spencer let it happen for a pointed moment until he lost patience and arched an eyebrow at him.

“You have something to say, Doctor?”

“Yes, uh, yes, my lord.” He flashed a weak smile, which Spencer assumed was an apology for his stumbling, and then his face took on a professional seriousness. “After she missed several official appointments, I finally consulted with her Royal Highness, the Princess Consort yesterday.”

Spencer’s pulse quickened again, much faster than it was before. He gripped a pen tightly between his fingers but wouldn’t allow any other reaction.

“I’m here to inform you that she is not pregnant, my lord,” Patel concluded with a neutral expression.

Spencer felt nothing at all for a moment, and that caused him to pause. He always felt _something_ , even if it was merely disinterest. But there was a vacuum within him, a total absence that was both startling and serene. But the moment passed over him, and suddenly disappointment slammed into his chest. And that was followed by sadness that they would have to continue with this ruse, that they hadn’t succeeded, and that doubt still lingered between them as much as their silence did. He was overcome by a need to see her, but she’d already refused him today. He wondered if she was worried, confused, or disappointed like he was, and he wanted to share that with her, not wonder about it in isolation.

He swiveled his chair from Patel, worried that he might inadvertently give his feelings away. “Is Her Highness otherwise healthy?” he asked.

“Oh yes, my lord. She is in perfect health.”

“I see,” he said. _Maybe it’s me. Maybe I can’t have children. No one tested me… only her. What happens if we can’t get pregnant?_

Patel lingered, not saying anything, and Spencer ended up waving his hand at him. “Unless there’s anything else, Doctor?”

“Uh, no, my lord.” Patel seemed a little disappointed now too.

“You may go then.”

“Yes, Your Majesty. Good day.”

After the doctor shuffled out, Aaron reappeared and quietly shut them in. He stood straight and watched Spencer. Then he arched a questioning eyebrow.

“She’s not pregnant,” Spencer whispered, feeling the words sink into him like frost.

“Oh.” Aaron’s face went terribly neutral on him. Spencer just nodded glumly and turned back towards the window. There was nothing more either one could offer on the matter.

\---- 

The Princess refused to see him for ten days, and then he opened a letter from the Embargo Secretary stating an eleventh refusal. He lost control and sent the uninformative note sailing through the air with an angry growl. Aaron watched him cautiously.

“Another rejection! What the hell is going on?” Spencer gripped the edge of his desk and tried to throttle back the anxiety and confusion that his daily mail was producing in him. “It’s always the same note, never any explanation. I’ve given her space, I’ve sent her letters asking if there’s anything she needs, and all I get is SILENCE and these… damned formulaic missives from the Embargo Secretary!”

Spencer turned to face Aaron, who’d gone very pale suddenly. “What have I done wrong? How can I _fix_ it if she won’t see me?”

Aaron didn’t move or react. It was as if he were stuck, much like Spencer felt. Spencer dropped his head into his hands.

“I thought… I thought we’d connected. I thought she… but I must have _done something_. That’s the only explanation that fits. And… I don’t know how to change this if we can’t talk.”

An uncomfortable sound came from across the desk, and Spencer glanced up to see Aaron’s paleness now held a look of frightful determination.

“Would you excuse me for a moment?” he said quietly, and when Spencer nodded in bewilderment, Aaron launched to his feet and strode from the office like it was on fire.

Spencer was left alone, confused, and abandoned by the person he trusted most. He dropped his head back into his hands. _That’s just great._

\---- 

Aaron strode into the Princess’s apartments without knocking. It could’ve been a disaster; the Princess might have been uncovered, but he did it anyway powered by a blind determination for answers. Jareau was there and moved towards him, her eyes wide with shock at the lack of protocol, but he didn’t have time for it.

“Leave us. Now,” he ordered, and though Jareau blinked in confusion at his order and his tone, she nodded and took her station outside the Princess’s door with a quiet, “sir”. He turned to find the Princess walking towards him, intention hidden as always.

“Good morning, Aaron. This is a bit-”

He held up his hand to stop her. “Why are you refusing to see him?”

The Princess stopped in mid-step and a hand drifted to her abdomen before it twitched back to her side. Aaron watched her closely as she remained silent. Then he lost control for a moment as he huffed in frustration.

“He doesn’t care that you’re not pregnant. I mean… yes, he cares, but he’s not angry.”

She remained still and silent, just an unmoving, unknowable figure in a dark pantsuit and veil. Even so, he felt a tension escalating between them in the room.

“Why won’t you meet him? He thinks he’s done something to you. He’s tying himself in knots trying to figure out what happened. It’s not fair that you opened up to him and then-”

Aaron stepped forward unconsciously and the Princess retreated several steps quickly, one hand coming out to hold him at bay even though they were twenty feet apart.

“Don’t!” she blurted, loud and panicked. Aaron froze where he was, confusion dissipating his anger. He took a breath.

“Your Highness, you have nothing to fear here,” he said calmly, slowly raising his hands in surrender. He saw her breathing pick up as the veils moved obviously, and he didn’t understand any of it. “What’s happening right now? You can tell me – we’re friends…”

“You’re the Captain of his guard. You’re here because he can’t be. You sent Jareau from the room…” She backed up until half of the large room lay between them, her voice tight in a way he’d never heard before.

“I can call her back in,” Aaron gestured to the door. “Would that make you more comfortable?”

“She works for you,” the Princess spat back. “When push comes to shove, she’ll do what you tell her to.”

“And what do you think I’d tell her to do?” He kept his voice low and soothing, his hands high and visible. He’d stumbled into something he clearly didn’t understand; he was at a disadvantage.

“I’m not pregnant!” she shouted.

“I know,” he murmured back. “And that’s okay, m’lady. Truly. We’re just concerned about you.” 

The Princess made an unhinged sound that might have been a laugh. “You _would_ say that. But I won’t be fooled again.”

“Again?”

She twitched. “He, uh… he won’t be happy…”

“More than anything,” Aaron said cautiously. “He’s worried about you. He’s grown to care for you a great deal-”

“He says that, yes. They always say that. What other response is there?” She laughed again horribly and stepped back until she knocked into the far wall. She jerked in surprise at hitting it, and then her whole body coiled like a cornered animal. “He wants me back in that room where no one can see…”

“‘They’, m’lady? Who is ‘they’?” Aaron was getting a terrible suspicion. “Has the King ever mistreated you when you are alone?”

Aaron knew the answer to that question was no, but the Princess’s reaction was firmly and viscerally the opposite.

“And if that doesn’t work, he’ll break the contract. He’ll send me back.” She shook noticeably and when she spoke again, her voice shook as well. “I can’t go back…”

“He doesn’t want to break the contract, m’lady,” Aaron said earnestly and stepped forward before he was reminded to stay where he was when she twitched. He wanted to tell her what he knew, what he’d seen with his own eyes: _he’s enamoured with you._ But that wasn’t his to say, and he was worried that it wouldn’t ease her anyway. There was something else going on. “Who is ‘they’? Why can’t you go back home?”

“I’m trying,” she said wetly. “Can’t you see I’m trying?”

“M’lady… has anyone… hurt you?” Aaron swallowed down something black that rose up his throat and tried to suffocate him.

“Not here,” she whispered, hands bracing against the wall behind her. “Not this time.”

_Not this time._

Aaron swallowed down again, the blackness rising despite that and making him tremble in his uniform. _Oh no…_ “Your Highness, have you been a consort _before?_ ”

Was it possible? He’d never heard of such a thing. Consorts who failed to conceive were set aside. He didn’t know if they were given second chances or not. And she’d have been given a thorough medical exam prior to signing a contract. How could this happen? And did the Queen Mother know? She was the driving force behind this idea to begin with.

The Princess found a tenuous grip on her authority and straightened her back. Then she took a step away from the wall and pointed abruptly to the door.

“Please leave, Captain,” she commanded, icy and distant. “I am unwell and wish to be alone.”

“M’lady,” he begged quietly. He wanted to ask for her trust. He wanted to remind her of their nascent friendship. And he wanted to know everything so he could find whoever put this fear into her and make them pay for it. He was surprised how much he wanted that for himself, and not on Spencer’s behalf.

“Captain,” she barked. “Leave. Now.”

Aaron regretfully bowed and slowly backed to the door. The Princess didn’t move a muscle. When he passed Jareau on her way in, he held her back by her arm.

“Something’s wrong,” he whispered to her, and she went still at his side, at attention. “Do what you can to ease her, but back off if her anxiety escalates. And inform me immediately. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Jareau whispered back, eyebrows lowering in concern before she strode back into the Princess’s apartments and shut the door.

Aaron sighed heavily and then strode back to the King’s office with determination. He was certain he wore a ferocious scowl when he stormed in, shut the door and growled at Spencer, who sat blinking curiously behind his desk in the winter sunlight. 

“We have a problem.”


	12. Chapter 12

“How could this happen!” Spencer stormed through the halls, scattering random palace staff with his frightening expression as he went. Aaron jogged slightly to keep up at his side, wondering if he’d done anyone any favours by being so blunt with his opinions.

“We don’t know _what_ happened exactly,” he warned, hoping to calm his friend before they reached the Queen Mother. “That’s why we have to talk to her…”

“If Mother knew…” Spencer’s faced darkened ominously. 

“Let’s wait and find out, okay, Spence?” he pleaded quietly. Spencer shot him a deadly look and strode ahead of him. Aaron sighed. Now, he felt a little like the enemy as well. Bearer of bad news and all…

They reached Diana’s apartments, and the guards on duty moved to announce them, but Spencer swept them away with an irritated wave as he strode in without knocking. Aaron nodded that it was all right, and Diana’s guards warily stayed put. Aaron followed Spencer and shut the door behind him. Diana was reading, but smiled widely when she saw them both, their grim expressions notwithstanding.

“Spencer! Aaron! How lovely…”

“We’re not here to visit, Mom,” Spencer growled, and Aaron clucked at him to check his tone a little. He was way too wound up for this discussion.

“What is it?” Diana’s face creased in concern. Aaron stepped forward, in front of Spencer, to physically check him again and start the conversation in a productive manner.

“There is an issue with the Princess, ma’am,” he began. Diana wrinkled her nose at the “ma’am”, having told Aaron time and again to call her “Diana”, but he ignored it and pressed on. “She is anxious and upset, and we believe you may know why.”

“Me?” Diana blinked. “Why is she upset?”

“She’s not pregnant,” Spencer interrupted, his tone impatient.

“Oh dear,” Diana’s expression went sorrowful. “Well, that’s a setback, but not entirely unexpected. The first month can be so fraught… she just needs to settle in a bit. The stress, you know…”

“That’s not…” Spencer sputtered behind Aaron. “Whether she is or isn’t pregnant isn’t why we’re here, Mom…”

Aaron held up his hand and prayed that Spencer calmed down a little.

“Ma’am,” he continued evenly. “When I went to inquire after her wellbeing, the Princess became boarderline hysterical with me.”

“Hysterical?” Diana asked.

“Yes. I got the impression she thought there would be punitive consequences to her failure to conceive. Punitive, _physical_ consequences.”

“She thought I’d beat her,” Spencer interrupted, sounding a bit hysterical himself. Aaron reached back and clumsily grabbed his arm to still him.

“The reaction was out of proportion to the circumstances,” Aaron soldiered on. “And, based on what I know of her from our conversations together, her reaction was out of character for her as well. She is a practical, intrepid, thoughtful individual. The terror I saw in her today didn’t fit at all, and I’m certain it isn’t something that has developed in her brief stay with us so far.”

“I see,” Diana looked at Aaron carefully. It was a perplexing response. “You know her well enough to feel confident in your assessment?”

“Well enough, yes,” Aaron said in his professional tone. “We’ve become friends, after a fashion.”

“Friends?” Both Diana and Spencer said it at the same time.

“Yes. She’s alone here, and I communicated a lot with her in her first days in the palace. It evolved into casual conversations. Now, we talk almost daily.” Aaron turned around to face Spencer’s astonishment. He squeezed his arm where he held it and gave him a look that said, _You know it isn’t anything more._ “I believe we are friends, and I also believe I know her as well as anyone else here.”

Aaron turned back to Diana, who seemed stunned. “So, it is my belief that whatever fear she has, she brought with her. It has lived within her for a while. Enough to become an instinctive reaction outside of her intellect. She did not earn it here.”

Aaron waited with the obvious question hanging in the silence of the room. Diana just thinned her lips. Aaron huffed and decided to become forceful.

“Is it possible, ma’am, that the Princess was a consort to a previous suitor?” Aaron felt Spencer’s muscles tense under his grip.

“It’s not a question,” Diana sighed after a moment. “She was.”

“What?” Spencer ripped his arm from Aaron and stormed around him to stare down his mother. “She’s MARRIED to someone else?”

“Of course not,” Diana tutted, looking slightly offended at the suggestion. “She was a consort to another noble some years ago, but the contract was dissolved by mutual agreement six months into it.”

Both Aaron and Spencer silently blinked at her, unable to form a coherent thought between them.

“If the consort doesn’t conceive, technically, the couple were never married in the first place,” Diana elaborated, and Aaron rolled his eyes knowing this would cause Spencer to explode.

“Never married?!? She took vows! She slept with him. Or her. Or… how can you justify this so easily?”

“Amend your tone, young man,” Diana warned, and Spencer’s spine immediately curled in a little. “I’m still your mother. What sort of person do you take me for? The Princess was an ideal candidate for you for a variety of reasons. I saw no reason for a cancelled contract in her past to stand in the way of a successful union. And I looked into it, you know. It was mutual and not her fault. Her parents attested to that as well.”

“You mean the parents she couldn’t wait to be rid of, who spied on her with their guards?” Spencer grumbled petulantly. Diana sighed.

“I spent months vetting her, Spencer. Honestly… this is why I kept it to myself. It would have tainted your perception of her from the start. And for what? A mistake that wasn’t her fault? Would you condemn her for something in her past she can’t change? I raised you to be a better man than that, darling.”

“Then why not give me a chance to exercise my better nature, Mom? Why hide this from me like I’m still a child?”

“Because it doesn’t matter, Spencer,” Diana said testily. Aaron stepped forward.

“With respect, ma’am, it does matter. Or we wouldn’t be here now,” he rebuked softly. “At the very least, something happened to _her_ that is still effecting her. That impacts _us_. It impacts Spencer.”

Diana looked abashed as her cheeks pinked up. He hated arguing with the woman who raised him, the woman he secretly thought of as ‘mother’. Spencer sighed heavily beside him.

“How much do you know about the termination of the first consort agreement?” Aaron asked after an awkward silence. “Did you read it yourself?”

Diana shook her head, no. “We hired an investigator to look into it. The report that came back was that the Princess entered into a consort contract with the King of Southern Ireland and she stayed with him for six months until the contract was voided by both parties. Her family received a considerable settlement and a gag order was enacted. The Princess returned to her estate, and the noble went on to contract with another candidate.”

Diana leaned forward as her expression took on a genuine urgency. 

“This Irish King… he contracted with three more candidates and they all ended in cancelled contracts. We investigated that too. With gag orders in place, it was impossible to discover _why_ the agreements were cancelled, but the implication is he couldn’t produce a child and was unwilling to accept that.”

She turned to look at Spencer with a plea in her eyes.

“It wasn’t her fault, darling. Isn’t it obvious?” She grabbed Spencer’s hand and held it fiercely. “And I know you’re becoming close with her. Would you have allowed that to happen if you knew from the start that she had a past?”

“Diana,” Aaron cleared his throat gently, his cheeks heating. “Not to put a fine point on it but… do we _know_ that she can have children?”

Spencer whipped his glare at Aaron, who sheepishly bore the brunt of that anger.

“She was _terrified_ today. She’s hiding herself away. Something happened to make her that scared.” Aaron sighed as both Diana and Spencer stared at him. “I think we can all agree that she’s here for her own reasons. What they might be? Well… there’s no love lost between her and her family. And becoming Spencer’s consort would’ve come with a substantial dowry. Maybe… maybe she’s here as an escape from something worse back home.”

Aaron looked Spencer directly in the eye.

“She said she _couldn’t_ go back. Maybe this is an opportunity she’s desperate to keep. And she can’t keep it if she can’t have a child.”

Spencer’s face went slack, the pinched anger around his eyes melting away as he turned inward in thought.

“No, no…” Diana shook her head emphatically. “She was given thorough physical exams by both her doctors and ours prior to signing the contract. Everyone attested that she was capable of conceiving.”

“Did you see the report, Mom?” Spencer murmured. Diana looked at him.

“It was redacted, but, yes, her fertility status was confirmed. I saw that.”

“Mom,” Spencer suddenly swallowed hard. “Did the report say if she’d _ever_ been pregnant?”

Diana blinked rapidly, her mouth falling open. “I… I honestly don’t know. I wouldn’t think to ask the question in the first place. No one would.”

“Could you find out?” Spencer’s voice was barely a whisper. “Surely, the Royal Physician has an unedited version in his files. I understand I can’t see it because of the embargo…”

Everyone stared at him as he went terribly pale. “She… she has a scar on her abdomen. It’s… not surgical. She did her best to hide it from me and got upset when I noticed it.”

Spencer looked at Aaron, suddenly sadder than he’d seen him in a long time.

“You said she was terrified,” he whispered wetly. “If the only reason she thinks I want her is a child, and she’s looking to escape her life…”

He left the rest unsaid, hanging between them, and Aaron’s heart cracked a little. He could see now that Spencer had fallen for her, and he also saw the grim realization that the Princess might not have been as she seemed. Just another person looking for something from him and perhaps putting on a show of intimacy to achieve that. Spencer straightened slightly and shoved his conflict aside for the moment. He turned back to Diana.

“We need to see that full report, Mom.”

Diana nodded and then smoothed her skirt across her legs. “Yes. I’ll… I’ll see to it right away.” She stood abruptly and Spencer caught her arm.

“I know you thought you were doing the right thing,” he murmured. “But I’m no longer a child. You should have told me something this important.”

Diana’s determination softened for a moment and she reached out to cup her son’s cheek.

“Would you have given her any part of your heart if I had, dear? You didn’t want this marriage in the first place. You would’ve walled yourself away – I know you. You’d have done your duty, yes, but you’d have missed an opportunity to find a kindred spirit in her. I chose her for _a reason_ , darling, and those reasons remain even as ugly truths come to light.”

“You’re not infallible, Mother.” Spencer’s expression closed off, but his voice remained soft. “Maybe you were wrong.”

Diana sighed and sadly patted his cheek once before slipping around him and out of the room. Then a period of terrible silence fell over the apartments, and Aaron and Spencer remained still in it, trapped like insects in amber.

“That was harsh of you,” Aaron murmured eventually. “You know all she does comes from a good place. From the heart.”

“She married me off to a woman who agreed to the union just to escape something in her past. Perhaps Mom thought she was doing me a favor, so I could learn to love her, but there was never that assurance from the Princess. It was cruel of her.”

Aaron’s face creased in frustration. “How was it cruel?”

“Because I _do_ feel for her,” Spencer snapped, and then sagged. “I do. It’s thrown me into a turmoil I can’t describe. And what is it all for now?”

Aaron strode forward and grabbed Spencer’s arm hard. 

“So, she came here to find refuge from _something_. Maybe. We don’t know yet. But, so what? Of all the things she could want from you, is safety and a chance at a new life so bad? I mean, you only wanted her in the beginning because she could provide you with an heir of noble blood.”

“And we don’t even know if she can do that.” Spencer shook himself free of Aaron’s grip. “There’s no quid pro quo here.”

“Wow,” Aaron huffed and crossed his arms. “It didn’t take you long to get entitled about this, did it? Remember when you were disgusted by the idea of treating her like a broodmare?”

“I’m still disgusted by that!”

“Really? Because what I’m hearing are the miseries of a man who feels umbrage because a woman might have used him out of desperation, and he might not get what he didn’t want in the first place.”

“Who said I didn’t want children?”

“You didn’t want a child out of obligation,” Aaron countered, getting right in Spencer’s face about it. “You’ve always said that.”

Spencer ducked his eyes away.

“And you can cut the theatrics about feelings being one-sided while you’re at it. Who knows where her heart was at when she got here, but something’s obviously developed since then.”

“How do you know?”

“C’mon, Spence.” Aaron was getting frustrated. “Why would she spend so much time with you? Why would she try so hard? Think about it.”

“It could have been an act,” Spencer pouted. “To ingratiate herself to me. To blind me to all of… _this_ when it came to light.”

Aaron frowned and held his petulant glance for a long moment. “Did it _feel_ like an act, Spencer?” he murmured, and was rewarded with a look of devastation from Spencer that broke his heart. “You’re a grown man with experience and past lovers. You’d know the difference between an act and something that… well, something that messes you up.”

Spencer turned away to hide his expression. Aaron continued speaking to his back and it was easier.

“You’re messed up over her.”

“I’m not,” was the muffled response back. Aaron just rolled his eyes to himself.

“Whatever. I don’t have time to wade through your peevishness. But I’m telling you, you’re not alone in this. I don’t know what you two share when you’re together,” Aaron swallowed awkwardly. “But I do know she talks about you even when she doesn’t mean to. She’s not that cagey all the time, you know. You’re in her head.”

Spencer turned and spent a full minute blinking at Aaron as a violent blush rose up his throat. 

“How is it that you’ve become friends with my wife?” he asked eventually.

“Spencer, jesus…” Aaron rolled his eyes again and turned from him. “Sometimes you can be such a tool.”

“Maybe I should phrase it differently: _Why_ would you befriend her?”

Aaron turned back and saw that Spencer wasn’t jealous, he was gutted.

“Why would you get close to someone who took your place?” he asked, and Aaron’s lungs seized on him. “Why would you… help her? Comfort her? I never asked that of you. I _wouldn’t_ ask it of you, ever, Aaron.”

Aaron tried to speak but nothing happened, so he cleared his throat roughly. “She… she didn’t take my place.”

“No, she didn’t,” Spencer responded pointedly. “No one will.”

“Well, then…” Aaron made a ‘let’s move on’ hand gesture as his face got hot.

“Maybe this is for the best,” Spencer murmured as he took a step forward.

“What does that mean?”

“It means… I never wanted an arranged marriage.” Spencer reached for Aaron’s hand at his side and skimmed the outline of his fingers gently. He watched their fingers with too much focus. “I had someone already.”

The heat on Aaron’s face raced down his neck and across his shoulders, making him feel uncomfortable in his stiff guard uniform. “Spencer, you made the right choice. You wanted to give her every opportunity. That wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t end what we had.”

Spencer’s gaze shot to Aaron’s, and his eyes were furious and hurt. “I can’t trust her.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Don’t I?” Spencer went back to looking at the finger he’d curled around one of Aaron’s. “I’ve always been able to trust you…”

Aaron pulled away quickly, the heat in him racing lower. “That’s because you’ve known me for two decades. It’s hardly a fair comparison, Spence.”

“What I’m saying is… no one expected my marriage to be about love, or even to grow into that.” Spencer sighed deeply. “So maybe I need to let go of that idea too.”

“Spencer…”

“Maybe I need to accept the idea that I’m married, but my heart will have to find fulfillment outside of my marriage.” Spencer took another step towards Aaron. “We could be together again-”

“Stop!” Aaron barked and pointed at Spencer. “This isn’t about your heart right now. You’re just upset because you think she’s duped you somehow. You reached out, and it feels as though you were rebuffed, and now you’re wounded and want something safe to balm you. I am _not_ your safety zone, Spence.”

“Are you saying I don’t actually care for you?”

“I’m saying that you’re ignoring how much you already care for her. You’re reverting back to someone you know – a safer choice.”

“Safer choice? Aaron! I thought you’d _want_ to be with me! And if my marriage is the sham everyone expected it to be, we could do that without guilt.”

Aaron leaned forward and poked his finger at Spencer’s chest. “I’m only going to say this one more time: she has genuine affection for you. The relative happiness of everyone involved in this is up to you and the choices that you make now. I’m not going to gleefully step in front of what was building between you two and call that a victory for me. I don’t want to be wanted that way.”

Spencer’s expression collapsed and his throat moved over and over. He blinked as he held Aaron’s gaze, and when he spoke his voice was broken and soft. “You’d deny us a chance to have what we both want? For a principle?”

Aaron felt like he was in flames standing before Spencer. His face must have been scarlet, and the sensation was as painful as the idea of burning. And he’d keep burning long after this conversation was over because it was the first time Spencer had ever come close to stating that _he chose Aaron._

“You may want me, Spencer, but you also want her. Just… stop denying that. It doesn’t do any of us any favors.” Aaron sighed and felt an urge to flee. Then he thought of an ideal excuse to make that happen. “ _Deal_ with this – everything that’s happened and what will happen when we find out more about her. Deal with it compassionately because we all deserve that.”

Aaron backed away and Spencer watched him go, eyes huge and glassy. He made no effort to stop him.

“I have something to look into,” Aaron mumbled.

“What?”

“Something in IT. It relates to all of this…” Aaron swirled a hand in the air. “We need more intel, and I need someone smarter than me to get it.”

“Over in IT?” Spencer said incredulously, obviously put out at being left alone at his emotional crossroads.

“One of the techs is frighteningly good at… well, hacking, for lack of a more appropriate term. I think we need to know more about this Irish nobleman and the Princess’s family than we’re going to get from Diana’s polite inquiries.”

Spencer’s face closed off, but he nodded. “Yes… err, yes, that’s very sensible.”

Aaron sighed. “So, I’m gonna go see to that and get a broader context for this mess. Whatever I find, I’ll bring it to you. I give you my word.”

“I know,” Spencer sighed back and then turned away. 

Aaron watched him as he seemed to curl and diminish a little, like the weight of who he was and who he was expected to be was beating him down. Aaron wanted to go but found he couldn’t tear himself away from the sight. And then, overwhelmed by the idea of his anchor shifting in the loose shoals of his mind, he turned abruptly and focused on something he could actually fix.


	13. Chapter 13

Diana asked them to meet in the Royal Infirmary and when both Spencer and Aaron arrived, she looked ashen and fragile. She held her hands in front of her, tightly clasped as if she didn’t trust them.

“Well?” Spencer murmured, forehead creased with worry.

“I’m sorry, darling,” Diana whispered. “I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

Aaron stood very still and tried not to anticipate the answer.

“Dr. Patel’s exam suggests that the Princess may have been pregnant at some point, but he concludes that she’s never given birth.”

The infirmary room got so quiet it felt as if the world stopped breathing.

“And he noted the scar you mentioned,” Diana soldiered on after a long moment. “His conclusions about it are vague, but he’s sure it was caused by something sharp… a blade of some kind. He made no findings as to whether the injury was an accident or an attack.”

Another long silence covered them all, and Aaron watched Spencer process the information slowly, face getting drawn and cold as he stared ferociously at his feet.

“How could you not have known this?” he asked eventually, still staring at his shoes.

Diana looked shattered, raising a hand to her chest. “The report I received was redacted, and he filed the scar finding under ‘Other’, which didn’t seem relevant to me, so I never read it.”

Spencer’s stare shot to her. “But the previous pregnancy, surely _that_ was relevant. You didn’t notice that and question it?”

Diana sighed. “Patel excluded that information in the report he sent me. I’ve already confronted him about it, and he doesn’t have a good reason for it.”

“He is to be dismissed immediately,” Spencer commanded.

“Already done,” Diana raised her hand to calm him. “I don’t appreciate being coddled any more than you do, dear. His intentions with this exam are questionable at best.”

“He was paid off,” Aaron spoke up carefully, stepping closer to them both. Their fevered stares both landed on him and he shrugged under their weight. “I had a tech in IT look into Patel, to check for any anomalies.”

“Which tech?” Diana asked.

“Penny.”

“The perky blonde one?” Spencer added and Aaron nodded back.

“She’s ruthless when it comes to uncovering digital dirt.”

“She seems so sweet… all those fluffy toys at her desk…” Diana said absently.

“Yes, well… she discovered that Patel received a sizable deposit to his personal bank account a month before the consort contract was signed. There’s no explaining the funds – no sudden inheritances or property sales or gambling streaks made good…”

“Can’t she discover who paid him?” Spencer asked.

Aaron shook his head. “It was from a company that turns out to be a shell for another company, and another, and so on. Patel wasn’t smart about his bribe, but the person bribing him was very smart indeed. We’ll never find them, but since he obviously falsified his report on the Princess, and there’s nothing else about him that seems suspicious, it’s logical to conclude he was bribed to make her seem like an ideal, physical candidate.”

“Well,” Spencer huffed, staring at nothing. “We can’t take anything in his report at face value. The Princess might _not_ be in good health. She might not be able to have children.”

“She appears very healthy, son,” Diana offered gently. “All that running she does…”

“Yes, but maybe she can’t have kids, Mom,” Spencer turned to her. “That was the whole purpose of this exercise. But what if she can’t? Where does that leave us?”

“You would… send her away? Start again?” Diana blinked in disbelief.

“I do _not_ want to start again,” Spencer growled. “But… does she even want to be here? I asked her if she was here willingly in the beginning, and she said she was. But I no longer know what to think of that answer.”

“Spencer,” Aaron stepped up, but Spencer waved him off.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet. But, if she goes, I’m not seeking a new consort. That’s my decision on this matter and it’s final.”

“Spencer, be reasonable. The kingdom needs an heir…” Diana started.

“Then I shall nominate one from our relatives. I am DONE with this anonymous marriage farce.”

“That’s… that’s not how this is done, son. An heir requires a lifetime of training. You need to start with a child and build them into a leader. You can’t just select a second cousin who’s never lived at court or experienced politics and expect them to take over the reins.”

“I am King, Mother,” Spencer arched an eyebrow at her and straightened to his full height. “This is my decree. If I have no noble children, I will designate a successor. The lunacy of the veiled marriage practice will stop at my generation, and if it only lasts my lifetime, at least it sets a precedent for others if they want to change the custom.” 

Diana frowned and it made her look almost alien to Aaron. That’s when he realized he’d never seen her aggressively disapprove of anything Spencer did.

“I applaud your desire to change the noble marriage traditions, son,” she said crisply, in a way that reminded Aaron of when they’d been caught tracking mud into the palace as children. “But this isn’t how you do it. And think of her. This could be devastating for the Prin-”

“Mother, enough,” Spencer hushed with a strange sort of authority. “I said I haven’t made up my mind about her. The only thing I’m sure of is that I have been given a lot to consider today, and I don’t have the luxury of time to contemplate it all. I need some space and some quiet to do the best with what I have.”

He looked at her pointedly, and Diana seemed shocked. Her gaze flicked between him and Aaron, as if she couldn’t believe she was being dismissed from this decision.

“Spencer, I…”

“Mom,” Spencer grabbed her hand and held it. “Please trust me. I’ve heard what you have to say, and it carries weight with me, believe me. But this is my life, my reign, my decision. Even with the wisest of advice, a leader has to make choices alone. _You_ taught me that. Please trust me the way I’ve always trusted you.”

Diana looked at their linked hands and she stroked his long fingers. Then she lifted his hand and gave it a quick kiss. 

“I trust you, my darling,” she murmured. “You’ve always made me proud to be your mother. I only wish I could guide you through this difficult event which is partially of my making.”

Aaron’s heart throbbed painfully at Diana’s admission, but then Spencer pulled her close and shushed away her worries, his free hand sweeping long lines along her back.

“S’okay, Mom. The lie took in all of us. You aren’t to blame here. I know what you wanted for me and that came from your heart.”

“What she feels might come from the heart as well, son,” Diana mumbled into his shoulder, giving her opinion one last shot. “Even with her past looming over her… the heart does what it wants, you know.”

“Mom,” Spencer warned gently and pulled out of their hug. “Please. I need to think.”

Diana nodded, resigned, and quickly kissed his cheek. Then she turned to Aaron and shot him a look he knew well: _keep an eye on him._ Aaron nodded slightly and sighed. That was always his job, wasn’t it? Even before it became his career. Perhaps that’s why Diana took him on in the first place – as a counterbalance to her son. She left serenely, and then Spencer and Aaron were alone in the muffled quiet of the infirmary office.

“Christ, what a mess,” Spencer whispered eventually, scrubbing his face. 

Aaron felt sick. But he’d given his word, so he swallowed it back and stepped closer.

“There’s more,” he murmured. Spencer’s face shot up and he stared, afraid of what Aaron would reveal. “I didn’t want to discuss it in front of your mother.”

“Oh god.”

Aaron took a deep breath. “Penny couldn’t unseal the files surrounding the Princess’s annulment, or any of the other consort agreements with the Irish King. But she managed to unearth other information that implies a lot about him.”

Spencer swallowed visibly. “Such as?”

“He has a checkered personal history,” Aaron sighed, attempting to remain removed from what he knew. “When his parents were alive, they dealt with his dalliances aggressively. There’s a conspicuous lack of evidence of _anything._ And every royal family has secrets – we both know that.”

Spencer nodded numbly.

“But after they passed, he wasn’t so scrupulous. Penny found legal complaints that went nowhere, and plenty of money paid to commoners who then refused to admit having met him.”

“What kind of complaints?”

“Some drunken antics, like you’d expect from a young person. But also, altercations in public, assaults, prostitutes claiming he never paid for their services and then harassed them. Things like that. The implication is he lacks self control and can be violent when provoked.”

“I see,” Spencer choked as his eyes got distant on him.

“Yes,” Aaron sighed. “But the most unsettling information surrounds his three consort agreements.”

Spencer focused on him again.

“Once their contracts were annulled and payments were made, they basically disappeared from polite society. There’s no record that they married, or travelled, or had children. Nothing. The Princess is the only one who has any kind of public presence after contracting with him.”

Spencer stiffened. “So, you know who she is.”

“I had to, Spence,” he said gently. “To get this kind of information, there was no other way.”

“Everyone knows who my wife is but me.”

“I’m sorry.” Aaron let it lie between them, feeling guilty and complicit in making his best friend miserable. “But… there’s more.”

“Of course, there is,” Spencer sighed and folded his arms across his chest. “Tell me.”

“The Princess’s family said the contract cancellation was mutually agreed upon, but records show the Princess was flown out of Ireland and back to her parent’s estate five days before a meeting occurred between the parties to annul the marriage. When she arrived back in the States, she spent no more than four hours at her home, and then she was transferred to a hospital where she remained for a month.”

Spencer’s eyes got huge, but his expression locked down as he waited.

“Though the hospital was public, her records were sealed. The only reason we know she was there that long is the private ambulance service that brought her there and back didn’t delete their records.”

Spencer looked at a blank spot on the office wall and went pale. “A month…” he whispered. Aaron tried not to imagine what sort of damage would necessitate a month of care at a public hospital instead of a private, royal infirmary. He let Spencer chew on that for a while in silence, knowing that he’d only have more questions and uncertainty.

“None of this explains the animosity she has towards her family,” Aaron continued quietly. “Or why she’s afraid to return home. Or even why she’d agree to be a consort again.”

Energy seemed to drain from Spencer, his spine curling and making it appear like his strings had been cut. “She must have been desperate,” he mumbled.

“Spence,” Aaron stepped close to him. “She’s a tough individual. Everything I’ve seen of her while she’s been with us tells me that. No one could be broken and fake such confidence. And given what we now know of her…” Aaron went inward for a moment, watching a memory of he and the Princess sharing ice cream and quiet conversations in a darkened kitchen. “I think she must be resilient as well. To face the criticism from her family and the public for her failure, to step back into public life again after everything… even to _try_ being a consort after such an experience… well, it makes me curious about her. I want to know her better, Spencer.”

Spencer’s eyes flashed to Aaron’s. 

“Don’t you?” Aaron pushed. “And if she came here because the other options left to her were dangerous or undesirable, don’t we have a duty to protect her? Maybe that’s just the Imperial Guard Captain in me speaking…”

“Or maybe it’s the friend in you,” Spencer countered quietly.

“I’m not gonna lie to you about that,” he sighed. “I’ve come to like her. I don’t think I know her well, but… we seem similar. She’s insightful and strong, but she’s also lonely. I sympathize with that. You have to understand that unique combination of traits in order to recognize it in another.”

Spencer’s expression collapsed. Aaron sucked in a breath and stood straighter, trying to steer the conversation back on point.

“I think she needs our help.” He paused while Spencer did nothing. “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Spencer choked. “This changes everything.”

“Does it?”

“Of course, it does. How could it not?”

“Spence, she came here to be your wife. We need to find out if that was done in good faith, but… if it was…” Aaron grabbed Spencer’s hand. “How has any of this really changed? Would you set her aside because she was once someone else’s? Would you have tossed _me_ aside if I belonged to someone before you?”

Spencer gasped. “That’s not fair. Your situations aren’t analogous, and you know that, Aaron.”

“Well then, is it because you’re not sure she can have children? Because there’s more to a queen than producing heirs. You said you wanted a true partnership with her…”

“It’s because she lied to me,” Spencer snapped and tried to pull his hand from Aaron’s. But Aaron held him tightly and tugged to get his focus again.

“Then find a way to _truly_ know her, Spencer. Figure out if she’s the queen this kingdom needs or not. You have almost a year to do it without anyone questioning what’s going on between you two. Challenge her to be the partner you expect her to be, and who cares if you end up having kids or not. You’ve already half-convinced yourself that you’ll singlehandedly bring down the veiled marriage tradition anyway.”

Aaron’s lips curled in a half smile as Spencer watched him with mottled disbelief.

“And you know you can’t just _decree_ that, right? I’m a lawyer and I’m telling you it’s legislation or bust on that move. The clerics and the xenophobic traditionalists will revolt if you just act like a cranky toddler about that.”

Spencer snorted and seethed. “I know.”

“So?” 

Aaron squeezed Spencer’s hand. When their eyes met, he gave Spencer a hopeful look. He didn’t know why he was pushing so hard for the Princess’s redemption, not when her disappearance would benefit his heart more. But he had an annoying sensation that their fates were woven together somehow, and that this was a critical juncture where they could either become further emmeshed or unravel completely. And he wasn’t lying when he said he felt they were friends – he _did_ believe that. Maybe he felt more kindred to her than he realized, or maybe he just wanted another anchor to keep him and Spencer from floating apart.

But Spencer deflated in his grip and sighed hard. “She’s not who I thought she was. The effort I made in genuine goodwill… I don’t know who I’ve been _with_ all this time.”

Aaron let go of Spencer and he noticed. He reached for him again, but Aaron stepped away quickly.

“You’ve got to learn to trust eventually, Spencer,” Aaron grumbled, shoving his disappointment at his friend aside. “Remember what I said about everyone letting you down at some point?”

_Like you right now, my love._

Aaron headed for the office door. He’d done what he could, and Spencer had to make the rest of this journey on his own.

“Aaron,” Spencer pleaded to his back.

“She let you down,” Aaron turned back and shrugged, hiding his heart. “It was going to happen sooner or later. So, are you going to hold it against her, or move on? _That’s_ the question.”

Aaron opened the door and sighed one last salvo at Spencer. “Everyone deserves to be real to those who matter, Spence. Real isn’t necessarily attractive. Truths can be ugly.”

Then he walked away and left his King behind to figure out his future alone.


	14. Chapter 14

Spencer strode through the palace corridors with an uncharacteristic grimness. Servants he passed smiled and bowed briefly, then noticed his mood, and quickly made themselves scarce. He had a reputation as a cautiously optimistic monarch, and he didn’t realize until now, as he scattered the help with the foulness of his mood, that those who saw him often found his manner generally pleasing. He had dim memories of his father, cocooned in his study, barking at anyone, including his son, who dared disturb him without permission. He’d done a lot to distance himself from his father’s memory, and so when he approached the Princess’s apartments, he made an effort to moderate his scowl and disguise the tangle of conflicts he felt about the situation before him. He was a better king than his father, and he had a terrible conviction of what his father would’ve done to his mother if she’d had the Princess’s prior history.

There was guard he recognized but couldn’t recall the name of outside the Princess’s chambers. Spencer swept past him with a raised hand as the guard objected.

“I don’t need to be announced,” he said.

“Your Majesty, Sergeant Jareau said-”

“Is she in there?”

“Jareau? Yes, my lord.”

“Then it’s fine. Don’t worry. You’ve done your duty here. I, uh, absolve you of failing to keep me out.” 

Spencer made an airy hand gesture to that effect which seemed to confuse the guard as much as it confused Spencer. He wasn’t sure he could ‘absolve’ anyone of anything, but he was the King, so he gave it a shot. He also knew Aaron wouldn’t fire the guy because Spencer got headstrong and burst through a door in his own house. He entered the apartments and Jareau was immediately in front of him as if she appeared from thin air, a surprised grimace on her face that she tried to professionally tamp down.

“Your Majesty,” she quickly bowed and then went back to frowning. “This visit wasn’t on Her Highness’s schedule today-”

“Leave us, Sergeant,” Spencer commanded, and Jareau’s expression changed to shock at the sound of his voice in the Princess’s presence. “I need to speak with her in private.”

“My lord, the embargo-”

“With all due respect to you, your Captain, and the rules you live by in order to keep the Royal Family safe: fuck the embargo.” Spencer gave her his best glare and it worked, backing her off a step.

“Y-yes, my lord,” she stumbled, color rising in her cheeks. “But the Princess’s safety is my charge, sir.”

“She will be safe in my care, I give you my word, Sergeant.”

Jareau hesitated for a moment and then bowed again quickly. “That’s good enough for me, my lord.”

“Thank you,” he sighed. “Please wait outside. I won’t be long.”

Jareau moved and Spencer murmured as she walked past him to the door. “Be kind to What’s-his-name out there. I pushed right past him because I knew he wouldn’t lay a hand on me.”

Jareau’s mouth curled for an instant, then it was gone. “You are a formidable King, so that’s understandable, my lord.”

Spencer watched her leave and thought, _sassy_ , for a moment before he turned back to the task at hand.

The Princess walked forward from where she’d been sitting across the room. She kept considerable distance between them and remained unreadable in her grey veil that matched her V-neck sweater and tailored pants. Her outline was sleek and powerful, but given what Aaron said about their last meeting, he doubted she felt that way underneath her disguise.

“We need to talk,” he declared, and her hands started moving quickly.

_We can’t talk-_

He waved her off, scowl getting deeper. “This is too important to be signed. I can’t have anything misinterpreted.”

 _I WILL not break the embargo_ , she signed violently. _I am following the rules of our contract._

“Fine. Then you can just listen to what I have to say.” He stepped forward, and something about him alarmed her. She backed away swiftly, placing even more space between them in the generous apartments. He’d have to raise his voice to be heard, but he froze where he was as newly-uncovered information flashed through his mind paralyzing him.

_A previous husband. A broken contract. The scar on her abdomen. One month in hospital. Her fear of being sent home. Her fear that he’d break their contract…_

He raised his hands slowly and waited. She moved restlessly in her corner of the room, but kept her face towards him, gaging him. In time, her pacing slowed, and she eventually settled, sitting on the arm of a broad couch, her hands clasped together to stop their movement. Spencer sighed and began.

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

She didn’t move a muscle.

“I assume that’s because you’ve known you weren’t pregnant for a while and thought I’d be unhappy when I found out.”

He waited, and she eventually nodded.

“I also know that Captain Hotchner came here to discuss your absence, and that conversation left you both disturbed.”

She didn’t acknowledge anything.

“You know he’d tell me that. You _know_ he would,” he tried to leak earnestness at her. She sighed, shuffling the veils over her face, and he took that as acceptance. “The Captain considers you to be a friend, and he was legitimately concerned for your wellbeing, Your Highness. Forgive him for being caught between two loyalties.”

Spencer’s tone was soft, and she sat straighter on the armrest across the room, as if puzzled or intrigued by that response.

“He is the best kind of friend to have, trust me. His heart is a true one.”

She waited on him, interested but giving him nothing else. He sighed and went on.

“He became concerned about some of the things you said during that meeting, and that led him to do some digging to allay some suspicions he had.”

The Princess tensed up again, and Spencer chided himself that he wasn’t handling this better. He began his own pacing at his end of the room, hands behind his back, frowning at his feet.

“He was alarmed at the terror you displayed. That you thought I’d react to the lack of conception with _violence_ of some kind… M’lady, you have to know…” He looked up and stared at her feeling heartsick. “I’ve never been violent towards anyone except in defense of my life. I find it fundamentally distasteful, and I’m not very good at it. Even as a kid, I didn’t stand up for myself against other noble children who came to visit. Aaron always had to save me. I guess it makes sense he decided to do that as a career, with all the practice he got getting my scrawny butt out of fights…”

He heard a muffled sound and looked up to find her holding a hand to where her mouth would be. Her posture was more relaxed, and he tried for a quick smile, hoping that his childhood embarrassment had made her laugh.

“I realize you don’t know me well,” he said quietly. “So, I’ll just state it out loud so there’s no confusion: I don’t care if you get pregnant. I mean, I would like children some day, and I accept that’s the whole point of this exercise we’re currently languishing in. But what I expect from a marriage is more than that. I want a partner to share this _weird_ job that I have. If I found that partner through an arranged marriage, so be it. And if that partner couldn’t conceive… well, we’d deal with it somehow.”

He let that hang in the air between them, but she didn’t react at all.

“I thought… perhaps you were looking for something like that too.” He said it softly, like he was offering this fragile thing he had no certainty she would find beautiful. Across the room she knit her fingers together until the skin at her knuckles turned white. She didn’t say anything, with her hands or anything else. His heart shriveled a little in him. “But maybe you came here for other reasons.”

Her veils shifted as she sat straighter.

“I know about the previous consort contract,” he sighed.

The Princess unlaced her hands and rubbed her palms against her thighs. She was tense as a bowstring again, and he decided there was no way he could ease this fear in her.

“If you came here because you were running from something, if you just needed a new life and you were willing to give me your body in order to get that…” He choked on the words. He felt terrible for every moment of pleasure he’d taken from her. “I don’t want that.”

She gasped clearly across the room. He raised a hand quickly and took a small step closer.

“Listen, if you’re in trouble… I didn’t know you when you arrived, but I think I know a little about you now. If you’re in trouble and your family can’t or won’t protect you, _my family_ will. And you don’t owe me anything for it. I won’t ask you to have my children. You don’t even have to live here in the palace if you don’t want to.”

She was on her feet in a flash, her hands clasped tightly again, swaying anxiously.

“If you want to speak, you can,” he implored her. “I’m not breaking the contract. I’m offering you the safety of my home and resources so you can start a new life of your choosing. No strings attached.”

She took a step in his direction and then stopped.

“We can be friends, Your Highness. I won’t ask anything else of you. Your past is your business – I won’t ask you about it. But your future… well, it would be a privilege to be a part of it. And I won’t invoke any of the stupid, _fucking_ rules of the veiled marriage to punish you or subjugate you. In fact, I’ve decided to make it a mission of my reign to legally abolish it. If you’d like to help with that, I’d welcome your insight.”

She strode across the room quickly, making him jump at the suddenness of it. She stopped eight feet from him, her veils swishing, and she worked hard to unclasp her fingers.

 _Are you serious? Are you being fucking serious right now?_ she signed, spelling out F-U-C-K-I-N-G. He didn’t understand why she was still clinging to their silence.

“Uh, yeah, I’m being totally serious,” he blinked, caught off guard by her reaction.

Her hands fell limp at her sides, and she sagged. He had no idea what that meant. Was it disappointment, fear, surprise?

“Won’t you talk to me?” he whispered.

 _I can’t_ , she signed back. _Not yet. This is a lot to take in._

“You don’t trust it,” he blurted without consideration. 

She tensed up again, but then he did something else without thinking. He got down on the floor and kneeled before her. It made her gasp and he understood that; it was an inversion of everything his title stood for. A King was forbidden to kneel before anyone, except in times of war during absolute surrender.

“You are a Queen. Even if you aren’t my Queen. What I know of you, what Aaron knows, my mother’s intuition about you… we can’t all be wrong. You are genuinely met here, as an equal, Your Highness. I will always speak the truth to you, and I hope, in time, you will return the favor. Stay here with us and live as you please. Or stay with us until you figure out your next move. Just _stay_ and know that you’re safe.”

She watched him for a long moment, until his knees began to ache a little. The veils were moving around her mouth, and he assumed she was breathing harder.

 _Who taught you to be like this?_ she signed.

“Like what?”

_Decent. Like you can see into people._

He shrugged. “Mother wanted me to be a better king than my father was. A lot of my education was based on the principle of ‘see what he did wrong? do better’.”

She kept staring at him. He felt put on the spot.

“A king’s job is to make good decisions for a lot of people who have competing interests. Maybe that means you’ve gotta get good at reading people.” He took a deep breath in. “Most of the time I think I’m pretty selfish. Aaron’s the one who sets me straight when I lope off in the wrong direction, which is fairly often, honestly.”

Her heard her laugh, not a huff of air, but a genuine chuckle. Then she stepped towards him and offered her hand so he could get up. He did, with a crack of his knees he winced at.

“Thank you. My left knee’s a little tricky.”

 _A king doesn’t kneel_ , she signed after a long, quiet moment. Spencer fixed her with a serious look.

“I just did.”

 _I know._ The veils ducked away momentarily. _Thank you, Your Majesty. You honor me._

He took a risk and reached for her, skimming his fingers down one of her arms and not overreacting when she flinched at it, her head whipping around to watch him again. He waited until she settled, and then he rested his hand on her arm again.

“You called me Spencer once,” he said haltingly, his eyes flicking to her veils and away over and over. He remembered that night in her arms when he thought they were starting to be more, and he tried not to be disappointed that moment had slipped away from them. “It would be nice if you called me Spencer again.”

She remained utterly still under his hand. He sighed and dropped his gaze once more.

“Friends don’t stand on ceremony, Princess. I don’t want to be a king to my friends.”

He looked back at her and tried to exude the safety he’d promised with every molecule of his being. He meant what he said – now more so than during his stormy walk to her apartments. Somehow, standing before her again, she became less of an unknown in his mind, and his gut told him whatever omissions she’d made weren’t malicious. But he’d never tell Aaron that. He gazed at her hidden face and said ‘friend’ in his mind. Yes, he would give her what she needed and not put a price on it. He would take a risk and offer her a sliver of his trust.

She lifted her hands and carefully signed, _Thank you, S-P-E-N-C-E-R_.

He blinked rapidly and then found himself smiling. Okay. Releasing her arm, but still smiling, he bowed. “I’ll leave you in peace now, m’lady. But when you’re ready, we should probably discuss next steps. Preferably without hand signals,” he smirked. Her veils shifted as she huffed, but her body language was calm.

Spencer turned to go, feeling cautiously buoyed by the agreement between them. Then her hands caught him, spun him to face her, and then she was curled against his chest hugging him tightly. His hands didn’t know where to go, but after a moment, they closed around her as well, stroking warm lines along her back. He leaned his cheek against her veiled one and sighed noticeably into her shoulder. Then she began to gently shake. He clamped his eyes closed and pulled her just a little closer.

“We’ll be okay,” he whispered. “Everything will be okay.”


	15. Chapter 15

When Spencer arrived back at his private office, he was surprised to find Aaron waiting for him. He popped up from his chair next to Spencer’s desk and appeared uncharacteristically anxious. Spencer arched an eyebrow at him.

“So?” Aaron breathed, and Spencer huffed loudly, letting his back slouch as he walked to his own chair and sank into it.

“I made an offer to her,” he sighed, leaning hard into the chair back and staring at Aaron. “I proposed my protection and resources and asked for nothing in return. She can stay here if she wants, or I can set her up somewhere else. She doesn’t have to remain my wife. She doesn’t need to give me an heir. She doesn’t have to pretend she cares for me. It’ll be there for as long as she needs it, no questions asked.”

Aaron let out a surprised noise, and his face mirrored his shock. “I… that’s…”

“I know,” Spencer nodded. “I didn’t know that’s what I was going to do until I was in front of her.”

“Did she accept it?”

Spencer shrugged. “Initially, I don’t think she believed it. She refused to speak aloud, still following the embargo rules. I was talking, you see…”

“Oh. So, the embargo is officially broken then.”

“I guess,” he waved the idea away. “It hardly matters now that its whole purpose has evaporated on us.”

Aaron cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

Spencer glared at him. “We’ll never have a child together.”

“Did she say she that?”

“No, but why would she put herself through it when she doesn’t have to? She can have everything that comes with being my wife without _being my wife._ ” Spencer tented his hands and pressed his lips against his fingertips gloomily. “She doesn’t have to trade herself for anything anymore. We should all be so lucky.”

There was silence in the office for a long while, and neither of them moved or pushed forward. 

“I’m proud of you,” Aaron mumbled gently after that great quiet, drawing Spencer’s gaze back to him. His expression was unbearably soft, and his mouth curled in a small smile. Spencer’s heart stopped for split-second, and then marched on like the lapse never happened. “I didn’t know what you’d do either and… I’m ashamed to admit I was worried about that. But you exceeded, like you always do.”

Aaron’s smile grew and he leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees as if in full-body relief at Spencer’s actions. He shook his head a little and seemed to find it funny.

“I shouldn’t have doubted you. You can run hot sometimes, but you have a profound underlying streak of decency in you.”

“That’s the word she used: decent. She asked who taught me that.” Spencer felt stunned by Aaron’s pride. He didn’t feel that himself; not pride in anything resulting from this situation. “All I was aiming for was keeping her safe from… whatever. I don’t even know.”

“Well, she’s right. You are decent. And if she knows that about you already, chances are she’s seen other aspects that she admires as well. She may yet come around.”

Spencer felt his expression collapse into hurt confusion. “Why would you say that, Aaron? Come around to what? Why are you hoping she’ll overcome her past and fall for someone she was forced into a relationship with?”

“Because you’re in love with her,” he countered quietly, and Spencer had to turn away quickly, his throat getting tight and his face hot. “It’s okay, Spence. It really is.”

“No, it’s not,” he choked back. Shame swamped him suddenly, and he felt nothing but failure. Failure to protect Aaron, or her, or his own craven heart. “She doesn’t care for me, and given the deal we just made, I can’t expect that from her.” His voice cut out on him, and his ribs felt as if they were collapsing inwards. He felt very alone; very much the untouchable monarch people came to in order to solve their problems. Maybe his childhood tutor had been right: love wasn’t something a king could expect. “I betrayed you for nothing.”

There was a creak and a shuffle, then Aaron’s hand was on his shoulder turning him in his chair to look at him as his other hand cupped Spencer’s jaw. His eyes were huge and dark, mouth pulled down in sadness he couldn’t hide.

“You didn’t betray me,” Aaron whispered urgently as he knocked their foreheads together. Spencer let his eyes slip closed and sighed at the comfort offered, if only for a moment. And they stayed that way, Aaron kneeling before him, holding him together in his quiet office.

“What do I do now?” Spencer murmured eventually, feeling small and very out of control, like he was a child again bewildered by his fate. And then Aaron’s lips were on his, and he moaned gratefully for it, opening to him instinctively and ignoring the wetness on his cheeks. Aaron curled him close, heated and knowing and so, so soft, but then he pulled away abruptly with a husky, “Sorry”.

“Aaron…” Spencer reached for him again, but he shuffled to his feet quickly and smoothed the creases from his uniform as his face turned scarlet.

“Shouldn’t have done that. I’m sorry. You sounded so defeated and I… I can’t stand seeing you hurt…”

“You don’t need to apologize, Aar,” Spencer replied wetly, still aching to have him close again.

“Please don’t call me that,” Aaron whispered, pained lines popping up all over his face.

“Why?”

“Because that’s not friendship-us, and it’s not professional-us either.”

“So what?” Spencer responded sharply, feeling rejected again. Aaron glanced at him and changed back to his serious Imperial Guard persona.

“Because you’ve fallen in love with your wife and that’s not over by a long shot. So, don’t call me by the name you used when we were in the dark together and tell me that everything’s okay,” Aaron snapped, and Spencer saw the moment when he realized what he’d said and wanted to take it back. And Spencer’s heart pounded painfully, too fast and confused to get a hold over.

“And what if I love you as well? At the same time as her?” he barked back without thought, and now they both had matching expressions of discomfort.

“You don’t,” Aaron growled. “You’re just vulnerable right now.”

Spencer huffed and rolled his eyes, building up to an explosion, but Aaron cut him off.

“You love me as a friend, as the kid you grew up with – yes. But everything else was… just passing the time.” Aaron’s expression was like granite.

“P-passing the time?” It barely made a sound as it escaped him, and Spencer’s stomach violently twisted. If that’s all it ever was to Aaron… god, he’d _never_ been loved…

“Yes. People need to fuck. It’s instinctual. We were safe options for one another.” Aaron’s expression was impenetrable. “But that’s not the case with _her_ , not anymore. And she doesn’t have to pretend for you either. So, if you two come together again, it isn’t about instinct or an agreement – it’s about who you are to each other. And let’s face it, you’ve both spent a lot of time together already that has nothing to do with either need or a marriage contract. _That’s_ why I had to apologize for the kiss, and why you’re fooling yourself if you think you love us both.”

Spencer’s face was on fire, and he swallowed reflexively to keep his mind off his rioting stomach. His heart was just gone – it felt like a seared husk of something once vibrant and full. Now, it was an abandoned seed pod behind his ribs; no longer useful or wanted by either person it had set its sights on. Surely even a king shouldn’t have to suffer such an indignity.

“Spencer,” Aaron spoke again when he didn’t, and his voice was hesitant, as if Spencer’s lack of reaction was troubling. “Perhaps it sounds harsh but-”

“Leave me,” Spencer declared softly without looking at him.

“Pardon?”

“Leave,” he ordered again in a louder voice, then he flicked an authoritative stare at Aaron that had him backing off slightly. “It’s been a trying day and I’m tired.”

Aaron blinked, looking lost. “I will, but first-”

“That’s an order, Captain.” Spencer scowled, using the sudden flash of anger to control everything else in him that was coming apart at the seams. Aaron straightened and hid behind a bland, formal mask. “I’ll be fine with Alvez posted outside. You are dismissed.”

_Leave me if you thought five years of secrets and adventures and rapturous moments of incendiary joy was just ‘passing the time’. I can’t look at you and not see that. I don’t want to look at you…_

Aaron’s frame snapped to right angles as if preparing for an inspection. His eyes focused on a spot over Spencer’s shoulder as he said, “Yes, Your Majesty”, and bowed. Then he turned quickly and marched from the office, as any of his guards would in his place. Just another servant doing his duty. 

Spencer waited for the click of the door, and then he waited for something other than profound loss to sink in. He waited and waited, but nothing came to him.

\----

Aaron marched to his office and sat at his desk with no memory of the people he passed along the way or the things he’d said. He stared numbly at his desk blotter and wondered what task required him now. After detailed contemplation of the worn mat, he tapped his computer to life and began his weekly review of incident reports and royal agenda changes. This was fine – real work that he needed to do, even if it usually bored him to tears. Boredom was acceptable – bland and manageable and workaday. He could use it to tamp down on the tsunami of emotional panic swelling inside him. Because he lied to Spencer. Because he was terrified of Spencer finally _choosing him_ , and Aaron didn’t know how to be openly wanted. Because Spencer dismissed him, and it felt permanent. 

He kept tapping out sentences he wasn’t conscious of as the storm in him rose and churned. He couldn’t rein it back; the waves wouldn’t be tamed, and the crests slammed into him over and over until he gripped the edge of his desk and fought to breathe.

_Leave me._

_No, please… I’m sorry…_

_That’s an order, Captain._

_I can’t. You’re the only thing holding me together… you’re my anchor._

The storm overwhelmed him, and he barely made it to his small washroom in time. Crashing to his knees, he heaved his mistakes and inadequacies up until his throat ached and his body shook, reminding him that his control was an illusion.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bonus chapter this week because I'm on holiday ;)

It was late when the knock sounded on his door. He wasn’t sure how late until he squinted at the clock above the mantle. The numbers were blurry but the general impression he got was lateness. He considered not answering, but then worried it might be security-related. So, duty made him lurch from his deep-seated chair and stumble towards his unexpected visitor. He wondered how quickly he could sober up if it was an emergency…

He swung the door wide and she twitched at the suddenness, her blue veil swishing above a ludicrous pair of flannel pajamas.

“Umm, hey…”

“G’evening, m’lady.” He bowed without thinking, but it got wobbly on him and he had to grasp the door handle to steady himself.

“… good evening, Aaron.” She leaned oddly, as if half-deciding he was curious and half-opting to just keep on walking. “Am I disturbing you?”

Aaron grinned and that made her head snap back enough that her veils fluttered. He was probably coming off as creepy, but ‘disturbed’ was an accurate description of his current mood, even if he wasn’t disturbed by her. She made an airy gesture to the hallway when he didn’t respond, just leaning against the door grinning like an idiot.

“I was… uh… gonna suggest a late-night snack, but I see you’re presently marinating yourself, so…”

Aaron laughed and stumbled away from the open door to launch himself back into his chair by the fire. If she wanted to follow, she could. Or she could shut the door and leave him in peace. Her choice. He watched her as she made her decision, her edges taking on a pleasant blurriness that he found soothing. She shuffled in after a moment of doubt, closing the door quietly before finding a seat close to him for herself.

“So,” she leaned forward and braced her elbows on her knees casually. Her pajamas had colorful spaceships all over them. Aaron tried not to laugh again in case he couldn’t stop. “What are we drinking to?”

Aaron waved off the question, then reached for his half-empty glass. “Y’know… bad day, bad choices… the usual.” He leaned forward and squinted at her. “You have spaceships on your jammies.”

“Yes, I know,” her voice sounded amused.

“Like a big kid or somethin’.”

She nodded, and he sat back with a huff, draining his glass and not offering her one. “Spence had silly jammies when he was a kid. Ones with dancing rabbits, and a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle pair. Do you know the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?”

“I do,” she chuckled.

“He didn’t,” Aaron smirked sadly. “But he liked pizza and Renaissance artists, so…”

She laughed out loud at that, throwing her head back as the veils briefly outlined her face. Aaron waited until she stopped, and he smiled.

“He’d like your spaceships,” he said quietly. The Princess cocked her head.

“Are you okay, Aaron?” she asked just as softly, and somehow that was all it took to trigger his maudlin swell of self-loathing.

“Can I ask a vague question, and get an answer without you demanding specifics?”

She nodded cautiously. He closed his eyes and took a bracing breath in. Then he stared her down.

“How do we feel about lying to people we care about?”

She obviously twitched, and he raised his hand to calm her when his drunken brain told him to be _slightly_ less vague than that.

“I mean… say you tell a terrible lie to someone. But you do it ‘cause the truth would hurt so much more. You’re doing it to spare them stuff, but they might end up hating you for the lie anyway. Whaddaya think about that?”

She was quiet for a time, her head tilted as if contemplating her hands in her lap, then she sighed, blowing the veils obviously.

“Well… I’m not someone who should be giving advice about lying…” She fell silent.

“Emily,” he murmured, and her head snapped up. He realized he wasn’t supposed to know that yet. He rubbed his temple roughly as his face heated up. “Sorry… I… uh… may I call you that, m’lady?”

She sat still for a long moment and then slowly nodded her head.

“There are… different stripes of lies, Emily,” he continued gently. “What you did… you erected boundaries to protect yourself. I don’t blame you for that. You only had yourself to depend on. The lies I’m talking about aren’t like that.”

“Do you… do you know everything?” she whispered. He shook his head hard enough that the room tilted slightly.

“No, m’lady. I know a general timeline, that’s all. And I don’t need to know anything. Do you understand? I heard about the offer the King made to you today, and I assure you the ‘no questions asked’ part is something I have no problem with.”

“But you have problems with other parts?” she asked, and he closed his expression off as much as he could. He cleared his throat instead and sidestepped the question.

“My opinion of you is based on the things you say and do. Things I’ve experienced first-hand.” He took another breath in, and when he let it out, it came with an unfiltered, soft confession. “You’re my friend. I… I honestly don’t have many.”

She gasped, but it was a sound with no action. She continued to sit across from him, unreadable.

“Sorry,” he mumbled, turning away. “Probably too pissed to be talking like this. I have this thing… sometimes I give away stuff too easily…” He laughed. “Pretty awful trait for a security specialist.”

“Aaron,” she murmured and waited until he turned to face her again. “I don’t have friends either. Pretty much none, in fact. So, it’s kinda wonderful to find one in a place where I least expected it to happen.”

And that lightened his gloom a little, enough for him to smile at her and hope she was smiling back under the veils. A part of him wanted to hate her – this woman who tore his life apart – but a much larger, boy-like part was overcome at having someone to share things with. She knit her fingers together while he watched and then she jumped in with both feet.

“Listen… that’s why I came by tonight. I wanted to apologize for how I reacted when you came to my apartments. I was… well, I wasn’t entirely present that day.”

“That became rapidly apparent,” he said gently.

She shrugged, still focusing on her tangled hands. “I know… I know you weren’t there to hurt me. I wish I could’ve reined in the anxiety better but, it took hold of me and I couldn’t wrestle it down for once.” Her veils swished as she looked up. “I only remember some of it, but if I disparaged you or insinuated-”

Aaron held up his hand to stop her. “We’re fine, Emily. I swear. Mostly, I was worried about you and upset that I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. Then I told the King and possibly made it worse…”

“That didn’t make it worse. You know that. He had a right to know,” she sighed. “Is he really on the level with this ‘you can stay here and it won’t cost you anything’ deal?”

He felt punctured, bleeding out from her casually constructed question and its deafness towards him. He reached for his tumbler but found it empty, then he sighed when he realized he was too unsteady to get up for a refill.

“He means it with every inch of who he is,” Aaron said quietly. “His heart is a tangled, chaotic place, but it is the truth of him.”

There was a moment of silence, and then, “What a strange thing to say. And yet, it also feels on the money.”

He looked at her. “Do you know he’s in love with you?”

He couldn’t believe he said it, and it wasn’t his to reveal in the first place. His face flamed with shame at how a little booze and heartache had unmade him. 

“It’s… it was only a few weeks,” she twitched.

“He won’t do anything about it,” Aaron sighed. “He’d sooner give up his throne than force you into something you don’t want.”

“I never said I wouldn’t be his wife,” she countered crisply.

“It’s not the title he wants, it’s the feeling behind it. He knows you don’t love him, so-”

“How could I give myself to him when he’s in love with someone else?”

Aaron twitched so hard he heard his knees pop. His mind went blank as he stared at her. _Oh shit._

“I mean, it’s obvious. The care he takes with me. The need for consent. The guilt he couldn’t hide when we were together. I even asked him about it once.” Her voice was higher and tighter than before, but all Aaron could focus on was the question screaming in his head.

“What did he say?”

She shrugged and half-turned from Aaron. “He didn’t answer. Which is answer enough, I suppose.” She waited, and so did he, sobering a little as his mind suddenly kicked back in and raced with questions. Then she sighed and slouched back into her chair with a loud creak. “Did you know about it?”

“I… I knew he was with someone, yes. He ended it before you arrived though.”

She rolled her head to face him so that the veil fabric caught on the chair back and pulled tight across her. “How could he do that? I mean, maybe it wasn’t love. I dunno. I can’t get a read on him that way. But, can you imagine how that person must’ve felt? Tossed away for a stranger…”

“Everyone who gets involved with a royal knows how their marriages work. His lovers always knew where they stood,” Aaron grumbled back.

“Well, am I supposed to find that flattering? That he cut off all of his other lovers to come to me with a semi-clear conscience? And now he thinks he loves me. Without hearing my voice or seeing my face or knowing anything about me. It sounds like his love is a fickle thing.”

Aaron’s temper flashed over, no longer held in check by his studious, sober self.

“It was ‘lover’ – singular not plural – and yes, he did do it to clear his conscience but also to do right by you, even though he didn’t know you. I don’t know what he bases his feelings for you on, but in the twenty years I’ve known him, he’s never been casual or ‘fickle’ about love. He’s no player, m’lady. I’ve _seen_ him fall for people, and he’s fallen for you. That’s all I know.”

She fell silent again, watching him. He couldn’t see her eyes but felt them burrowing into his expression. He shuffled uncomfortably and desperately wanted another drink. Maybe he telegraphed it because she suddenly leaned forward and waved at his empty glass.

“Where do you keep your hooch?”

He blinked at her and pointed to an old roll-top desk in the corner with a scotch bottle on it. “Extra glasses are in the bottom left drawer.”

She grabbed his glass and went to the desk, refilling his and prepping one of her own. She didn’t ask about mixers or ice; it was straight-up or nothing for her.

“Is she still around? His ex?” she asked with her back turned.

“He,” Aaron blurted. “It was a man. His Majesty is bisexual.”

Emily turned and watched him for a moment, a glass of scotch in each hand, hip cocked as if she didn’t know where she wanted to go. Then she slouched forward with a huff and handed him his glass before settling once more.

“Well, the gossips were right about that, I guess,” she mumbled a moment before she raised her veil enough to take a swig. Her lips were crimson, even in the dimness of Aaron’s rooms.

“You knew before you came here?”

She nodded, her veils falling into place again. “It wasn’t a concern. So long as he wasn’t gay. I understood I was just here to provide a baby, but even so, I didn’t want to work at convincing a guy to get aroused.” She sighed and turned to face him. “So, is he still here?”

“He’s not a factor anymore. It’s definitely over.” Aaron swallowed his glass of scotch in one gulp, living for the burn inside him and pushing everything else away.

Emily made an unconvinced sound as she rotated her scotch tumbler in her grip. “Did he… love him? Do you know?”

_God, I wish I knew, Emily. I really do._

“I don’t know. He never told me.”

She breathed in suddenly and deeply, and then she lifted her veil again and swallowed down the rest of her drink. Then she shuddered.

“I never…”

Aaron waited, and then leaned forward when she didn’t follow it up with anything. “You never what?”

“I never expected… to like him.” She fussed with the empty glass and then placed it on the floor next to her chair. She glanced around, the veils swishing, like she was trying to figure a way out of his rooms. “There was, you know, a moment…” She clasped her hands tightly to keep them still. “He said something… well, he signed it, but… what he said just got under my skin and _messed_ with my expectations so hard that it broke me a little. I remember thinking, ‘I wish I’d met him before’.”

Aaron froze. “You mean… before the Irish monarch.”

She trembled and then stopped abruptly, but she nodded. 

“Sex is… well, sex is sex. You can make someone feel good without feeling much of anything else if you want to. If you let your mind go a little. Being with him wasn’t hard that way.”

Aaron turned off what few bruised impulses hadn’t already been bludgeoned by scotch. Because sex with Spencer was never like that for him.

“But it quickly turned into something else,” she whispered.

“Something else?”

She shrugged, veils drooping as if she was staring at the glass at her feet. “It was like… suddenly being plugged in. Like an undiluted shot of him straight to the vein. All of his emotions, all of the intensity. I’d go back to my rooms afterwards and ride the high of that for hours.”

Her veils shifted up as she turned to him again. “And you wanna know the weirdest part?”

Aaron nodded, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Many of the nights I got that feeling, we didn’t even have sex. It would happen when we just played board games, or we’d read for a while and then trade books, so we’d know what the other one read. I mean, what _the hell_ is that about?”

_Christ, it’s about love. She’s in love with him too. What a goddamned mess._

“Anyway, all of these feelings weren’t part of the plan, and I guess I scared myself a little,” she continued. “I let it snowball. Denied the reason why I was here in the first place.” Her veils swished in his direction as her fingers tightened across her flannel-clad knees. “I knew I wasn’t pregnant long before Dr. Patel forced the issue about the necessary blood test, and then I panicked. I was sure he’d break the contract.”

Even under a ton of scotch, Aaron’s analytical mind began to pull things apart for him. “But… a consort has a year to conceive. Why panic so soon?”

“Aaron, it would be a Hail Mary if I got pregnant.” She let it hang between them in the quiet of his apartments. Her spine slouched, her head dipped – it was undisguised shame. “No doctor has ever told me I couldn’t in so many words, but…”

Suddenly his anger flared and focused on her. “You came here under false pretenses.”

Her head shot up again. “No… no I didn’t. I… after Ian… the Irish king… it took a long time to recover. Physically. But eventually, I felt healthy again. It seemed possible, and my family’s doctors agreed on it. I started to hope. I mean, as a noble, I knew my marriage wouldn’t be for love, but that doesn’t mean that I never wanted to be married.” She leaned forward a little. “I want to have children very much, Aaron. That’s worth the cost of all this drama to me.”

And with that, Aaron’s anger died as quickly as it ignited. Because he understood that longing for connection and love that was leaking through the sorrow she felt at her brokenness.

“You want a family of your own making,” he confirmed quietly. He did too.

“I do,” she sighed. “So, I decided to give arranged marriage one last shot. And there was considerable pressure from my parents about this, but that’s another story.” She waved the thoughts of her parents away. “But… a woman knows her body. She knows when something’s not right. And I feel… empty. Like that part of me that could make this work just isn’t there anymore. And that hurts, ya know?”

Her voice cut off abruptly and he wanted to reach for her, but he couldn’t do that without getting up. And he was too drunk to stand now.

“This was my last chance,” she ended wetly. “But I’m sorry I dragged this family into my mess. Everyone’s been so honorable. They deserved better. So… yeah, maybe you were right. I guess I did come here under false pretenses after all.”

“But… you care for him, and he wants you…” Aaron croaked, the scotch souring on him.

“And how long do you think that would last without a baby?” she said quietly but firmly. “What he wants can change. What he _needs_ is an heir. He would’ve been better off having a bastard with his lover…”

Aaron couldn’t help but twitch. “A… bastard can’t sit on the throne.”

“A monarch can legitimize anyone if he or she really wants to,” she said with a bitter edge. “Better a bastard raised in love and taught to rule than an empty nursery.”

A ponderous silence swept them up after that where they both sank back into their own heads for a while. Aaron was messily conflicted; still grieving the loss of the only person he loved, and yet sympathizing too much with Emily’s misery at the same time. Deep down in the blackest part of him, he wanted her gone, he wanted Spencer for his own, and he wanted a family with him, throne be damned. This was a sticky, selfish want, angry and strident, and when it shouted in him it used his mother’s voice. A Wild Hotchner. His want was unrealistic, discounting Spencer’s desires and personality entirely, and that’s why Aaron pushed it so far down, making it more volatile. 

But Emily’s confession moved him as well because it was a yearning for something he’d spent his whole life chasing as well: a family. Some fabled, sunlit foundation of connection and affection that was stronger than all of life’s grey vagaries. It was a fairy tale version of a family and neither one of them was innocent enough to believe it could come true. But fundamental loneliness could make you cling to the thinnest fiction for comfort. They were different people: he, an orphan with nothing to his name, and she, a woman whose privilege was punishing her. But they wanted the same thing, and from the same person. He couldn’t decide if they were combatants in this battle, or survivors. Not knowing where they went from here, he stayed frustratingly mute, staring at the blurry forms of his slippers and listening to the fire slowly dying in the fireplace.

“Aaron,” she whispered eventually, and he dragged his weary eyes from his feet back to her shrouded face. “Thank you… for listening. I can’t remember the last time… well, I don’t know what it is about you that makes me so frank, but I appreciate it. I also know that the things I tell you put you in an awkward position, and I’ve never asked if you were up for that before I dumped my shit on you.”

“I, uh, I wish I could be more helpful,” he stuttered, shocked by her gratitude.

“You have been. Don’t worry,” she said gently, with a smile in her voice. “Now, enough of my problems. Let’s get back to you. You asked me a question earlier. About lying.”

Aaron’s face got hot. “Yeeeaaaah…” He scratched the back of his neck anxiously. He wished he hadn’t asked her that. There’s no way she wouldn’t ask for more details.

But she surprised him. “It’s been my experience that when you say you’re lying to protect someone from something awful, the person you’re really protecting is yourself.” She sat there in her spaceship pajamas and silken veil like some sort of incongruous soothsayer and for an instant he wondered if she could see right through him. “Is that what you’re doing?”

He didn’t answer, too drunk and too paralyzed by the hazy idea that she _might_ be a witch of some kind. She shook her head once.

“You don’t want me to ask for details, but maybe you should ask this question of someone you can trust with them. The King perhaps. He’s your best friend after all.”

Aaron sighed and held his forehead in his hand. His head was starting to hurt, and the room was swirling a little.

“Oh,” she said softly. “Well…”

“Yeah,” he muttered. No sense in denying it, since she might be part witch.

“If it’s hurting you so much that you’re drinking alone in your room about it,” she continued. “I think you already know whether it’s the right thing to do or not.”

He suddenly felt a hand on his shoulder squeezing, and he looked up to find her right in front of him.

“But what you _do_ with that judgment call is another matter.” Her hand slipped from his shoulder and cupped his jaw lightly. “You should probably tell him and let the chips fall where they may.”

Aaron swallowed hard. Did she know what they were talking about? Did she understand the advice she was giving? “And what if it blows everything up?” he whispered.

She shrugged and stepped back, the warmth of her palm sliding away from him. “Then it blows up. It’s better than alcoholism. That’s just my opinion.” She stood there for a moment watching him. “You know, no one gets what they want without a fight. I thought you of all people would understand that.”

“Me? Why me of all people?”

“Look at you, Aaron. Look at where you started, and where you are now. Look at the things you’ve done, the battles you’ve already won. You _know_ how to fight for things. It’s a part of you. A kind of… restless energy at the core of you, even though you pull off diffidence and calm effortlessly.”

“Jesus,” he blurted without thinking. “How damned drunk am I right now?”

She laughed, relaxing her body and the tension in the room at once. “Relax, Captain, you haven’t given too much of yourself away. But maybe that’s enough scotch for one night, huh? You should get some rest.”

“Easier said than done when you’re an insomniac,” he grumbled, but she turned towards the door anyway. He wanted to show her out, like a gentleman, but he really didn’t trust his legs to maintain his dignity. He called out to her instead as she laid her hand on the doorknob. “Emily?”

“Yeah?” She opened the door and leaned on it casually in her silly, colorful spaceship pajamas.

“Thank you as well. For listening.”

“You’re welcome,” she said warmly. “What are friends for?”

“Don’t give up either,” he called back. She straightened and cocked her head like she didn’t understand him. “Whatever you decide your fight is, don’t give up on it. Okay?”

It suddenly seemed critical that they make this pledge to each other, even if their fights eventually brought them in conflict with one another.

“You never know what you’re capable of until it comes time to do it.” He thought about the night Spencer was almost kidnapped. He remembered every punch, every kick, every place where he’d been pierced and slashed trying to save him. Aaron would’ve given everything he had that night, and almost did.

At the door, Emily nodded once. “Okay,” she mumbled, but he didn’t know if it was agreement, or just a way to make a clean exit. “G’night, Aaron.”

“G’night, m’lady. Sleep well.”

He bowed ridiculously from his chair and she chuckled, then shut him in and left him to his slowly dying fire, his deep chair, and his impending hangover.


	17. Chapter 17

Morgan placed Spencer’s mail in front of him on his desk with a perfunctory bow. He was a seasoned, capable and affable guard, but he was no Aaron. Spencer sighed inwardly as he stuffed away the swell of loneliness that threatened from deep in his gut. It had been a week since he’d told Aaron to leave, and in a fit of determination, he’d ordered that Aaron be excused from his personal guard as well. His official command was “the Captain has much on his plate, and plenty of capable guards to see to my day-to-day needs – he may now attend to those duties that require his particular attention, resting in the knowledge that His King is well protected by those he so admirably trained”. But he wasn’t kidding himself. The reason for the dismissal was he couldn’t hide his broken heart from him.

Never loved him. Just passing the time. How humiliating. 

So, he’d had no interaction with Aaron except the odd message from his office about his agenda or changes in his security detail, and it was like going cold turkey after years of addiction. He was sick – physically ill – irritable and not eating. Diana noticed it right away at their breakfasts and demanded to know what was going on in that soft way of hers that he never seemed to refuse.

“Aaron and I fought,” he mumbled, pushing his eggs around his plate.

“Oh well,” she sighed. “It’ll blow over. Remember how often you fought as kids? Some of those tantrums were terrible. Little people can get so angry… their emotions get so much bigger than them. But you always made up. Always.”

Spencer had forgotten about that. 

There was an epic fight when they were fifteen. Spencer had become enamored with a distant cousin, Lila, who’d come to spend the summer at the palace. It wasn’t really romantic; it was more like the fascination of having a new interest, a new friend. They spent a lot of time together, and though Aaron was always invited along, he rarely joined them. 

Aaron blew his top when he discovered Spencer and Lila were attending a party together and, for once, he wasn’t invited since it was for nobility only. He yelled and called Spencer a traitor and a despicable, fairweather friend. Then he made some crude suggestions about what Spencer and Lila were doing together alone. Spencer’s temper erupted and he yelled back, shoving Aaron for good measure. Then Aaron had done the unthinkable and punched him. As Spencer lay on the ground, holding his jaw and blinking up at his best friend in shock, he saw Aaron go pale as his anger drained from him in an instant. The palace guards pounced on him immediately, pulling him away, and Spencer didn’t see him again for several days, his mother telling him “you both need to cool off and think”. 

When they met again, Aaron was dressed in a stiff suit and stammered through a formal apology that didn’t sound like him at all. Spencer blinked a lot after he was done and then said, “Are we still friends?” And Aaron choked up, his eyes getting red and glassy, and his breath coming in gulps he could barely control. “I’m so sorry, Spence… I can’t… I shouldn’t…” He didn’t finish his thought. Spencer crossed the room and hugged him, and Aaron shook violently against him as he gripped him back hard. Spencer told him he missed him, and it was fine, barely a bruise at all, but Aaron sobbed into his shoulder and couldn’t stop. It scared the hell out of Spencer because he’d never seen Aaron so far out of control; he hadn’t even cried when his mother died. 

Spencer had forgotten, but he stared at his breakfast and suddenly remembered it all again.

“And what about the Princess?” his mother continued blithely. “Has she decided what she’ll do now?”

And that was the other half of his misery. He hadn’t seen her in a week either, leaving the ball in her court to choose when she was ready to reengage with him about her future. But the absence made things pretty clear: however friendly she may have been in the past, she could do just fine without him now. And he missed her, unambiguously and with a profound disappointment that it was completely one-sided.

Humiliating.

“My lord?”

Morgan’s voice brought him back from his swamp of self-loathing and into his office.

“I’m sorry, Sergeant, what did you say?”

“I said, the Princess Consort is outside, my lord.” Morgan’s brow wrinkled in concern. “She wishes to see you. But she is unattended.”

Spencer’s heart made a terrible squeeze and then expanded far too fast. He stood up to contain the discomfort of it. “That’s fine, Sergeant, send her in.”

“She does not have an appointment, my lord. And an embargo representative isn’t with her-”

“It’s okay, Morgan,” Spencer shot him a look. “Send her in, if you would, and give us the room please.”

Morgan bowed quickly, shuffling on a bland mask so similar to Aaron’s that it shocked Spencer. Then he was gone, and the Princess in his place in a smart pencil skirt and cashmere sweater outlining her in sharp contrast to the billowing grey veil above them.

“M’lady,” he nodded, and offered a small smile of welcome. “It’s good to see you.”

“And you,” she said haltingly. He froze where he stood and blinked rapidly.

“Are you all right, my lord?”

“You… uh… you’re speaking…”

“That’s okay, isn’t it? I mean, the last time we saw each other-”

“It’s more than okay.” He rounded his desk and strode towards her too quickly, making her body tense up. He told himself to calm down and held out a hand to her. “Come. Sit. I’m so happy you’re here.”

“Oh. Well…”

He guided her to a comfortable chair by the windows looking out over the gardens, and then he took a seat on a corner of a couch closest to her, leaning in and smiling like an idiot.

“I’m sorry it took so long for me to reach out,” she said after a moment of awkward staring. 

Her voice was shadowy and smooth, like dark chocolate, with a distinct New England clip to her words. It felt like magic to him. They could talk and ask questions and be _clear_ with one another. Language was so important to him, and now he could learn about her through her words.

“You took the time you needed,” he mumbled back, not really thinking about it before he said it.

“Yes, well… about that. I’ve thought a lot about what you said during our last conversation.”

She stopped and didn’t continue. He waited her out, pulse hopping too quickly, but marshalling patience over his need to know. She sighed when he didn’t prompt her.

“There are things you should know first. Before I comment about your generous offer. You need to have the facts in order to decide if you still want to extend that offer or not.”

“M’lady, I told you, I don’t need to know the details-”

She held her hand up to stop him, and he did. “I’ve gone over it in my mind, and I’m fine with what I’m about to tell you. Really. So, may I continue?”

“Of course.”

She settled a little deeper into her chair and smoothed the line or her skirt nervously. He saw her nails – fresh blood at the nail beds – and took a bracing breath in as she began.

“Firstly, I want you to know how grateful I am for the welcome of your house. From the moment I arrived, I felt honored by your family and staff. It’s the sign of a healthy household, and without going into detail, that’s something I don’t have much experience with. So, thank you. It was a small but meaningful gift to me.”

Spencer blinked and felt… proud? He nodded to her compliment, not knowing how else to respond.

“Secondly, I wish to apologize for any unsuitable behavior on my part during the unfolding of recent events. I was not at my best.”

“M’lady, that’s not-”

“C’mon now,” she interrupted softly, almost intimately, and it made him sit up and pay attention. “Let me do this, okay? In my own way. It’s important.”

“O-okay.”

Crossing her legs, she laced her fingers together over one knee, like she was tying herself down or something. 

“I spoke with Captain Hotchner and understand that he looked into my background. I assume, therefore that _you_ , in turn, now know my background as well. So, I won’t go into that, and I guess it saves me some time.”

She waited for him to acknowledge this and he did with a nod.

“The decision to be your consort was mine, and I researched you and your family as thoroughly as I could before making that decision. But I will not tell you that the choice was unconstrained. At the consummation ceremony, you had Aaron ask me if I was here of my own free will, and I have to admit that I lied about that.”

Spencer’s gut twisted uncomfortably, and he swallowed hard. _Oh no… no… that means I…_

“Because, while the choice about whom to marry was mine, the option to marry at all wasn’t, and was driven by circumstances that you and your family are unaware of. Knowing you as I do now, if you’d understood what forces were at work at the time, you’d never have agreed to our union. And I’m sorry for that, and for keeping it from you, because this is a fine ol’ mess that should never have been yours to figure out.”

Spencer’s mind swirled, and he shook his head briefly to settle things a little. “I don’t… I think you’ll have to elaborate on that some…”

“Yes,” she said and then spoke quickly, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her hands hard. “My house and name are old and carry power, but my family is broke, Your Majesty. Like, beyond broke. We’ve been living off credit for most of my life, and without a plan to repay what we owe. Even ceding our land and assets at this point won’t come close to covering it.”

He sat back into the sofa with a huff. “That was definitely not in the bio.”

“No. It’s a secret my family has kept close for decades, but secrets never keep. Eventually everything finds its way into the light of scrutiny.”

Spencer stared at his feet. She went on.

“My first marriage was about settling our debts,” she sighed, and he looked up at her again. “But when it didn’t… take… we no longer had the guarantee of the Irish King. Just the dowry and the settlement he paid our family afterwards. My parents became increasingly desperate for funds.”

Spencer felt like he was going to be sick. She’d been traded for money. No doubt that was the reason why she was here. He’d ‘bought’ her without even realizing it. Then he took a moment and realized the larger horror: that _every_ arranged marriage was basically a shade of this transaction. It was a form of slavery.

“When I was healthy again, their desperation turned back to me. An advantageous marriage was still the quickest and easiest way to make the money problems disappear. I’m an only child – there was no one else to do it.”

Spencer looked away, eyes stinging. _oh god…_

“I want you to know…” she said haltingly, as if the words cost her to say them. “They weren’t always like this. My parents, I mean. When I was a child, they adored me. Maybe they deluded themselves into thinking that the money and good times would last forever, and they wouldn’t come with a cost. But money changes people, especially those who don’t know the value of it until it’s too late.”

“It’s disgusting,” he blurted savagely, and then quickly apologized. “I’m sorry. I realize I’m no better… it’s easy to judge from a distance…”

“You _are_ better,” she said quickly, and when he looked back at her, she was leaning toward the sofa. “They loved me once, but that’s over now. I’m just a commodity to them to ensure their reputation and make their remaining years comfortable. It IS disgusting, and it’s why I want nothing more to do with them. You would never do what they have done. The Queen Mother wouldn’t either. I’m sure of it. The proof is in Aaron; the boy from nowhere that your family took in and raised as one of you. There was _nothing_ to be gained by doing that.” She reached out a hand and gripped the arm of the sofa. “You are better than my family, my lord. So, go ahead and judge them if you want.”

“I… I don’t think that’s useful,” he choked.

“Fair enough,” she nodded, and sat back in her chair, her hand sliding away. “So, choosing to be your consort was a strategic move. Your resources and wealth would’ve made my parents’ debts irrelevant, and the dowry will be significant enough to keep the creditors at bay for a time. Naturally, you wouldn’t have known about any of this until you unveiled me to your people and our marriage was sealed with a child. Every royal family has its secrets, right?”

He leaned his head hard into his hand and tried to breathe. Just breathe…

“But _I_ chose you because you were the opposite of Ian. Umm… my first husband, the Irish King. On paper at least. If I made this work, I would’ve been free from my family forever. Free from him. And all I had to do was give you a child, which was something I wanted for myself anyway.” She stopped and took an audible breath. “Everything I discovered while looking into you said… well, you weren’t a reckless, young, entitled idiot who’d get off on the kinky power dynamic. And your politics, your causes are close to my own. Maybe, we’d never love one another, I thought, but there seemed to be a good chance we’d get along. I could live with that.”

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he hiccupped suddenly, and then there was movement and a trashcan placed at his feet as he tried to swallow everything back. Then she was next to him on the sofa, a hand gently rubbing circles into his back as he leaned forward and braced for the worst.

“Sorry,” she whispered. “Sometimes I’m too blunt. I don’t always read the room well.”

He forced himself to swallow, over and over, breathing through the chaos until it started to recede a little. Then he blew out roughly and opened his eyes, staring at the trashcan.

“Thanks,” he croaked.

“Don’t mention it.” She kept rubbing his back. “Feeling a little better?”

He nodded. “This must seem ridiculous to you. All the things you’ve been through already… and I can’t even listen to a synopsis of it without getting fragile.”

“Sometimes limits are arbitrary,” she shrugged. “I barfed my guts out before the consummation ceremony. I didn’t see that coming.”

He turned and looked at her, and she shifted until her veils faced him. “Really?” She nodded. “Huh. Me too. Only… afterwards. I’m not good with guilt.”

She kept rubbing circles into his back. “Was the guilt over the man you gave up for me?”

He stared at her hard then. “What do you know about that?”

“Nothing other than he existed. Aaron told me he’s no longer a factor. If you loved him… well, I’m sorry I got in the way of that.”

She ducked her head, but strangely kept rubbing him, and he strangely accepted it.

“You talked to Aaron about him?”

“It came up. He’d been drinking.”

“Drinking?”

“Listen, he keeps your secrets for you, okay? Even while drunk. The loyalty is remarkable. So, don’t give him static about this. He didn’t tell me much that I didn’t already know, and… we had a conversation that I really needed to have. It helped me come here today. To say what I had to about all of this.” She sighed. “You were right. He’s a pretty amazing friend.”

“So… you knew I was involved with a man before you came here…”

“Yeah. But you’ve been with women too. It’s not a big deal to me. I wish I were that flexible. It could’ve made this whole consort business a lot easier if I liked women too. Women are less likely to beat the shit out of you because they can’t get it up…”

He tensed and she noticed. Her hand stopped and a sigh billowed her veils. “Please don’t ask about it…” she whispered, and his ribs felt like they were cracking. He grabbed the hand resting in her lap and squeezed.

“If I’d known-”

“But you didn’t,” she cut him off quickly. “You worked with the information you had. The information _I let you have_. There’s no blame in your actions here, Your Majesty.”

He silenced a mournful sound. She didn’t want to hear it, but he felt there was a lot of blame for him to shoulder in this scenario.

“Uh, so… there’s a little more to tell,” she mumbled, squeezing her hand in his. “If you’re up for it.”

He sat a little straighter and her hand fell away from his back. He took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, let me have it.”

“Well, the news that triggered all of this – that I’m not pregnant – that’s where all of this deception goes from unfortunate to a clusterfuck.” She stopped and shifted a little more to face him directly on the couch. “I came here thinking that I might be able to get pregnant. _Might._ I was hoping, really, but now… I don’t know how to explain it but, I’m pretty sure I was hoping in vain. I’m sorry, my lord. I genuinely wished to give you a child – to give myself a chance to be a mother. I just think there might be too much damage already done.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and he was. He had hoped for a spouse who would raise their child in love, and it appeared he got what he wished for, but it still wouldn’t happen. She seemed sort of stunned across from him. “What?”

“ _You’re_ sorry?”

“Yes. It’s a tragedy that you’ve been through all of this, and you still can’t get the one thing you wanted out of it, and it’s a beautiful thing to want,” he sighed. “If this had been a marriage of love, I would’ve… offered to do it myself.”

“Offered… to carry our baby?” She seemed shocked. “Kings don’t do that. The risks, the complications… they’re much higher for men.”

“Yes, but my life is mine to risk. And who could stop a king once he’s set his mind to something?” He tried for a smile, to make light of his radical suggestion. It’s not like she’d ever take him up on it anyway.

“That’s just crazy,” she murmured, shaking her head, but she squeezed his hand. He wondered if she knew she’d done it. “We can circle back to how insane a notion that is and how Aaron would never allow you to do it in the first place.”

He chuckled, but not for the reasons she thought, and he hid his sadness from her. “You really are friends, aren’t you?”

She nodded as he watched her and then she sighed and released his hand.

“My inability to get pregnant would’ve broken our marriage contract.”

“Except I said that it _wouldn’t_ ,” he interrupted.

“It _would_ to the Embargo Council. There’d be an investigation and a report on the matter. The report is public unless the parties dissolve the marriage privately. I’ve been through all of this, so I know everything about it.”

“Are you worried about your reputation?”

“No,” she huffed, waving the notion away. “Who gives a damn. No one would take me on as a consort after two failed attempts anyway.”

“Well then… are you worried about your parents?”

She sighed. “There’s another deal in place you don’t know about. I told you my parents are desperate. They let me choose my husband so long as I could fulfill the contract. If I refused, or couldn’t fulfill the contract for any reason, they have another husband lined up who’d take me without caveats like providing him with an heir. And he’s promised to wipe out their debts, so… my wishes don’t come into it.”

Suddenly, Spencer’s whole body was burning and rigid. _They were going to give his wife away???_ “Who is this other suitor?” he bit out.

She tensed. “The King of Southern Ireland.”

“The man who abused you? The one who sent you to hospital for a month???”

Her body language changed, and she shuffled away from him. “You know about that?”

“Aaron figured it out and we sort of filled in the blanks together. You cannot go back to him,” he growled, not caring if it frightened her. “I won’t stand for it. I told you, you can stay here-”

“The Embargo Council investigation will alert Ian. He’ll know that I failed, and then he’ll dangle his money in front of my parents-”

“Then I’ll pay their debts. Right now. Today.”

“Please listen to me,” she said wetly and grabbed one of his hands. “There’s a _legally-binding_ contract already in place. If I fail, I go to him. It’s not a choice. It doesn’t matter what you do.”

“Oh, yes, it does matter,” he sneered, feeling strange and dangerous, even to himself. “Why does he want you so badly anyway? If you can’t give him a child…”

“It’s not about that.” She sagged and her voice sounded smaller, diminished. “He’s just a narcissistic little shit. None of his consorts gave him children, and he broke them all because of it. None of them were ever the same again. I heard one even killed herself.” 

She took a large, shaking breath. 

“I _dared_ to be with someone else. I defied him and carried on with my life. He can’t stand that. He wants to marry me again so he can finish what he started. Believe what you will about my parents, but they stopped him from killing me. Mother hired mercs to break into the palace and get me out. And then they took it too far, humiliating and blackmailing him for more money, which probably started this little revenge-porn plot in his deviant head.” She trembled horribly for a long moment. “But he’ll take his time with it, I have no doubt. He wants to enjoy every moment of it.”

Spencer was speechless, searing with rage and incredulity that people could be so cruel to each other. He’d never had much use for violence, but he felt he could hurt these people he didn’t know with ease. He felt the same way about the assassins who attacked Aaron. It wasn’t noble or civilized at all, not the man he’d been raised to be. But he would’ve done it in an instant if they had been in front of him. Without skill or finesse, he would’ve harnessed every last cell of himself to end the humans who tried to take what he loved. And that terrible instinct was before him again, just as sharp and urgent as it was three years ago.

“No,” he growled.

“No? No, what?”

“None of that will happen.”

“My lord-”

“NO!” He stood quickly and walked away from her because he knew his tone might frighten her. “You are my wife, legally, if nothing else. And I’m not breaking our marriage contract.”

“It doesn’t matter!” 

He turned to face her and found her standing too, arms flung out in frustration. 

“No child, no marriage. _That’s_ how the law sees it. _His_ contract activates, and he has the right to take me. That’s also the goddamned law.”

“Did you consent to his marriage contract?”

“What?”

“Did you CONSENT to it?” He stepped closer, face on fire. “Did you sign it?”

“Of course not! It’s not an agreement between me and him. It’s between him and my parents.”

“Well, _you_ didn’t consent to it. And _I_ certainly don’t consent to it. So, it’s not happening.”

“With all due respect, Your Majesty…” She was getting loud now, and the respect she mentioned didn’t seem apparent. “You don’t have the authority to make that choice.”

“Yes, I do!” he bellowed back, and she stumbled a little with the force of it. 

He gulped down a few panicked breaths and throttled back the haze that had narrowed his vision to a pinpoint. Aaron showed him how to do this, if he could only remember… picture your thoughts as waves… ride the waves… submit to the rhythm of them… 

“Hold on. Hold on a minute…”

He held his hands up, as if in surrender, and he kept breathing, thinking about waves and vengeance and somehow keeping everything together. Think, think, _think…_

“Your Majesty?” Her voice seemed very far away, and worried. “Maybe I should call someone…”

“S’okay. I’m okay. Just need a moment to calm down.”

“I’m so sorry, my lord. I should’ve found a better way to do this. I-”

“I have the authority to keep you,” he said as evenly as he could while still trying to calm his breathing. “If that’s what you want me to do.”

He looked at her as she froze in mid-gesture. Then she dropped her arms and cocked a hand on her hip. “Wow. Well, you’re gonna have to explain that one because I’ve looked into every legal loophole I can find to get my ass out of this and I came up with nothing.”

“Okay, well, first off, this is going to be a highly insulting argument, so… prepare yourself.”

She laughed loudly, as if he’d told the best joke she’d ever heard. He found it disturbing, but he carried on anyway.

“You’re basically a tax that your parents paid to me in consideration for marriage. In fact, in the embargo contract, you are referred to as an _item_ and not a sovereign being in order to facilitate this.”

“Yes, I noticed that,” she said dryly.

“Well, in feudal times, monarchs weren’t subject to things like taxation or personal reparations for things they confiscated through wars or deception or other treachery. What you caught, you kept, so to speak. Once it was within the walls of your keep, you owned it without question, and those who tried to take it were declaring war on your kingdom.”

“That’s fascinating, but also _history_. Modern royalty is a constitutional monarchy dynamic, subject to an elected parliament and mutually-approved rule of law. Every kingdom has to obey the laws they enact, even royalty.”

“But we still don’t pay taxes,” he waved his finger at her with ‘eureka’ enthusiasm. “Because much of our kingdom’s wealth is _family_ wealth, and therefore to be used for the people’s benefit, there’s no point in taxing us. It’s circular logic.”

She shook her head until her veils swished. “Yeah. So?”

“Being immune to taxation means that we are also immune to _land taxes_. In order to make this legally inviolable, the Kingdom of New York enacted the ‘Keep Law’ in 1909 to protect the wealth of the robber barons in their noble family. It’s based on the feudal premise that I just mentioned: ‘what you catch, you keep’. Everything within the physical boundaries of royal palaces is considered part of a feudal keep. To attack it is a declaration of war, and the family can defend itself any way it sees fit. This includes the land itself, thus making it immune to taxation, which was the purpose of the law in the first place. When this law was created, it simultaneously invalidated constitutional authority over palaces. Overnight, civil and criminal laws, determined by the elected body of the people, ceased to apply within the walls of the palace keep. No one objected to this oversight, mostly because no one realized it until years later. After New York did it, the law was quickly adopted by almost every noble house, including mine. Then the Keep Law was abused in order to hide assets from the people. This is why many royal families run their own banks, and those banks are on palace lands, so citizens not only can’t legally audit them, but they also can’t access those monies without declaring war on their own leaders.”

He stepped forward and gestured to her. 

“You are a physical assurity your kingdom paid to mine. I took possession of you as an asset, not a person, and am holding you within the security of my palace keep. Since, for the purposes of our contract, you aren’t considered a person, no outside authority can force me to release you. No civil or criminal law of ANY kingdom can supersede my authority within my palace boundaries. No agents of any enforcement body can enter here and reclaim you, not even members of your family. If they do, they have declared war and I can take any action I see fit to defend my property and assets, of which you are a part. I could set off a nuclear warhead in here and wouldn’t be held accountable for it. Though I’d be dead, so…” 

He shook his head from his tangent and stepped closer.

“Don’t you see? You’re not his to take so long as you live here. You are a payment that is meant to alleviate the burden of housing you until you pay yourself off, ie. producing an heir. _Then_ you would be publicly unveiled, and you’d become a person again. At that point, you could be considered a hostage and I’d be subject to noble ransom laws, and the Irish King _could_ reclaim you if he chose to. But if you never produce an heir, you’ll never be unveiled, and you’ll remain an asset of my property.”

He took a breath, realized he was excited and probably grinning, which wasn’t appropriate, and he shrugged into himself a little, trying to hide his gesticulating hands by tucking them awkwardly into his elbows over his chest.

“So, uh, insulting though it may be, you’re mine unless I give you up. I mean, if you want me to do that. It’s a legally sound argument, I assure you. I know a really good lawyer…”

He ducked his eyes and felt his cheeks heat as she stared with her veils blocking her from him. Honestly, it was a terrible thing to suggest, especially considering her past experiences, but he couldn’t see another option. And he was determined to protect her.

“I can pay your parents’ debts. That pressure on them disappears and the Irish King has nothing over them anymore. Maybe they don’t deserve to get off that easily, but… then we only have to concern ourselves with the King and how far he’ll go to pursue you. If he gives up, your life is your own again.”

“And if he doesn’t,” she mumbled. “I’m trapped here forever. A bird in a pretty cage. A thing.”

His stomach threatened again, and he choked out a shameful, “Yes.” Because that’s exactly what happened if the Irish King persisted.

She remained still, and with the veils in place, impossible to read. A minute ticked by in silence and he couldn’t stand it any longer.

“Do you want me to do this for you, m’lady? Because I will if you ask me to. Gladly.” 

His voice petered out at the end. How had his life come to this? A few months ago, he’d been in love, and his greatest concern was how to get funding for a new public monorail system approved by his Privy Council. Now, he was treating people like commodities and planning for war against another king. Was this who he was now? Could a person change that quickly?

Finally, the Princess cleared her throat and nervously smoothed her skirt again. “I think if we do this, you’d better start calling me Emily,” she said quietly.

“Emily,” he sighed, his flash of manic energy draining out of him as he said it. But finally, he had a name for her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Emily. For real. I’m Spencer.”

He placed a hand on his chest, and he heard a new warmth in her voice. “I already know your name,” she said.

“Yes, but I’m hoping you’ll use it now. No more of ‘Your Majesty’ or ‘my lord’. Surely we’re past that. We’re allies. We’re friends. At least… I hope we are.”

She took a moment and then walked forward until she was right in front of him. With heels on, they were almost the same height, and she stared at him before she reached to collect his hand from his chest.

“Yes, we’re friends, Spencer,” she murmured, her thumb circling over his hand gently. “Thank you for being my friend, considering everything.”

“Then you’ll accept my offer and my help?” he asked a little breathily. He liked the way she said his name. He liked the way she casually assured him. Dammit, he just _liked_ her.

She nodded, yes, slowly, and then breathed, “But I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you.”

He raised her hand to his lips for the briefest of kisses. Just an old-fashioned show of respect. “You don’t repay me, Emily. Friendship doesn’t keep a ledger.”

“But… I have to owe you _something_ …” she murmured. “I’m putting you at risk. Your family, your throne… it’s so one-sided. All I’m doing is sitting here being a target.”

He could hear the frustration and anger in her voice, and he could only imagine what it felt like to be the resilient woman who seemed to be resigning herself to imprisonment.

“I may never get out from under this veil…” she huffed, moving the hated fabric in the process.

“Well,” he cupped her hand a little closer. “Maybe you don’t need the veil anymore.”

He was almost breathless with the idea of seeing her face.

“I mean, when it’s just us, or in your apartments with your security detail… you don’t need to hide anymore. I already know your name. We’ve spoken aloud…”

“But…” Her voice sounded uneven. “The embargo. If I’m unveiled-”

“You’d have to remain veiled in public areas of the palace. To maintain the fiction for the Embargo Secretary. We’d also have to remain silent in public together, pretending that we’re following the rules… But I could make it easier.”

“Easier?”

Spencer nodded. “I’ll move the office of the Embargo Secretary to the Graveyard. That will keep them at a considerable distance.”

“I think they’d object to setting up an office with the dead, Spencer,” she snarked, but he laughed, feeling the relief of it thrum through him.

“The Graveyard is what we call a distant wing of the palace. It’s mostly unused. We store furniture and artwork there. Most people don’t even know it exists. It’s perfect for the Embargo Secretary. Like Siberia.”

“Oh, okay,” she laughed back, light and happy, and she squeezed his hand. “They’ll complain.”

“They are guests,” he said firmly. “They’ll go where they are told to go. We’ll say… their rooms have termites or something. They can grumble all they want but we’re just looking out for their safety.”

“Hmmm, by banishing them,” she said warmly.

“Indeed,” he smiled, and then let it fade. “It’ll give you a little more freedom, at least.”

She nodded and released his hand. He let her slip back a step and wondered why it felt like a retreat.

“Emily,” he breathed suddenly, his exhaustion dimmed by one last burst of inspiration. “You’re not putting me at risk. Or, no more so than I already am.”

He sighed and slouched a little, shoving his hands in his pockets.

“I’ve been a target since my father died, really. The King of Texas wants me dead to claim lands he considers to be ancestral. The King of Colorado is similarly ambitious, though less homicidal. He’d settle for my permanent incapacitation, or an open war between us where some hapless soldier might do the deed for him. The Regent of Oregon would like to annex California to her territory, and the Mexican Emperor has had eyes on our southern borders for as long as I can remember. I am surrounded by danger and avarice, and I rarely leave the palace grounds because of it.”

He stood a little straighter and focused on her with a sad stare.

“But I have work to do. I want to give the people reliable mass transit systems. I want to develop ways to grow crops on top of skyscrapers. I want to improve everyone’s access to healthcare whether they live in downtown Las Vegas or an unnamed pueblo in southern New Mexico. There is _so much_ to do that I can’t afford to think of myself as trapped or endangered, although that’s exactly what I am.”

He shrugged it away because, even though it was often a lonely life, it was all he’d ever known. 

“This Irish King… he’s just another threat on the pile. It doesn’t increase my worries that much, believe me. I know you think this is a tremendous burden to me, but it isn’t. It’s just… part of my life, and I’d gladly take on another enemy if it spares you from something you don’t deserve. So… perhaps that can put things into perspective for you. I understand that you suddenly feel caged because, sometimes, so do I. Occasionally, I still engage in the thought experiment of who I’d be now if I’d been born a normal kid.”

“Who… who would you be?” she asked hesitantly. He shrugged again.

“Maybe a teacher. Maybe a scientist. Or maybe I’d just deliver the mail and drink quietly at night and dream of being someone important like a king.” He lifted one side of his mouth in an ironic smirk. “The point is, this is who I am, and though I can’t have normal things like love or freedom or a family of my choosing, I can build hospitals and forests in the clouds and low-cost universities for those who want them. _That’s_ really something, ya know?”

“I see what you’re trying to do, you know…” she mumbled.

“What am I trying to do?”

“Give me a purpose. So, I don’t feel like a prisoner.” 

She clasped her hands in front of her and his face got hot. Sure, he’d tried to make her feel better, but he’d also revealed a very private truth to her as well.

“You know,” she stepped forward and straightened her shoulders. “I have a degree in civil engineering.”

Spencer felt his eyebrows pop. “You do?”

She nodded and took another step. “When I was a kid, I wanted to be an architect or a city planner. I used to make these large, intricate metropolises out of Lego. And I was a tyrant about it too. The staff couldn’t clean in that room – it was only for _LEGO_. Even the cat was banned from it.”

She laughed, and his heart felt like it would burst under the pressure of his expanding lungs and contracting chest.

“You did?” he breathed, feeling too soft and obvious all over. Why did they have to meet now? Like this? If it had happened any other way… “I made scale reproductions of all the major castles from The Lord of the Rings out of Lego when I was a kid.”

“Really?” she leaned forward. “Oh my god, please tell me someone took photos…”

He nodded vigorously, a smile spreading over him though he still couldn’t manage to breathe properly. “Mother took plenty. She was very proud. And Aaron can attest to this Lego mania. He helped me finish Helm’s Deep.”

She made an excited sound and rolled forward on her heels dangerously. His grin got toothy on him, her enthusiasm infecting his and making it warm and electric. Then she reined it all back in and nervously smoothed the lines of her skirt, as if she had to shore up her decorum. He felt a pang at the sudden loss of the moment, but then she quietly and calmly replaced it with something so much better.

“Well, in light of this new information, and considering that I may be here for quite some time… I might as well be useful. I mean, if you’d like a helping hand with some of your projects. You don’t have to, of course, or perhaps you could give me something low priority to review or something. Whatever you felt comfortable with. I’d understand if you think this is overstepping… your kingdom is _yours_ , and I’m not trying to influence-”

“I’d love some help,” he said too softly.

“Oh.” She sounded surprised. He stepped forward and let his hand brush her arm.

“It’d be nice if someone had my back on some of my crazier ideas. Or the gumption to challenge them if they’re too crazy. Aaron says I’m professionally infuriating.”

She laughed again, and mumbled a shy sounding, “It’s a deal.” He was delighted. Her laugh was great. Her enthusiasm was great. And she wanted to be _a part of things…_

“I’m so glad we’re finally able to talk,” he added. “The silence was difficult for me. I felt like I was constantly failing to communicate the right things at critical moments.”

He tried not to actively call up any of those moments in his mind in case she recalled them too and thought he was suggesting something.

“Yes, the silence was frustrating,” she admitted carefully. “But it offered its own unique kind of clarity too, don’t you think?”

He cocked his head at her.

“We _really_ had to pay attention to each other,” she explained. “Everything was so heightened, every gesture full of possible meaning and insight. It was… quite something. To exercise such focus, and to receive such focus in return…”

Spencer felt his cheeks flame. It _was_ something to be someone’s sole focus like that, and such a someone she turned out to be. He made an affirmative sound but didn’t feel it was safe to expand on it. He let his hand slip gently from her arm, and then smiled as he changed the subject.

“But it couldn’t last. And I much prefer to hear your thoughts in detail, Emily.”

She made a strange sound he didn’t understand, then her veils shifted down as if she was staring at her shoes.

“I should go,” she said softly. “You’ve just explained how busy you are. Thank you for making time for this, Spencer.”

She turned away and his heart rammed against his ribs as if it was going to follow her out.

“Come back tomorrow,” he stammered, and she turned to look at him. “If you’d like. I’ll sort out the initiatives that require the most help. And we can discuss how to work through the logistics of bamboozling the Embargo Secretary.”

Her veils billowed as she chuckled. “Alright. See you tomorrow then.”

She left and he continued staring at the closed door.


	18. Chapter 18

The Office of the Embargo Secretary was moved to a distant part of the Graveyard. Official complaints were made, and summarily dismissed by palace staff. Spencer personally visited and apologized for the inconvenience the termites had caused, patiently and sympathetically listening to the polite umbrage of his guests. He was known as a compassionate King after all. Emily’s blood tests were provided to the embargo officials, as mandated, and Emily arranged standing evening meetings through the Embargo Secretary in order to keep up appearances of their sham procreation efforts. Eventually, the grumblings subsided.

Within a week of his meeting with Emily, Spencer had arranged for her parents’ debts to be paid. Spencer’s family had their own bank, and no one was the wiser about the transfer of funds except him, Emily, Diana, and the bank’s chief officer. Spencer personally drafted the letter that would accompany the notice of their debt relief, and he watched Emily’s veils anxiously as she read it over before he applied his Royal seal to it.

_From the Office of HRH King Spencer I, monarch of California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico  
To HRH King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth of the Kingdom of Connecticut_

_His Royal Highness, King Spencer I, solemnly acknowledges the sovereignty of the Connecticut Kingdom and the absolute authority of HRH King Edward IV and Queen Elizabeth over said territory. But it is with humility that His Royal Highness informs the monarchs of Connecticut of the dissolution of all debts, liens and credit markers formerly laid against the kingdom’s lands and assets as of the date of this letter. His Royal Highness offers this in gratitude for the priceless gift of the Royal Consort, their daughter. His Royal Highness hopes this gift meets with your approval, and that such generosity between family should remain private as is in keeping with Royal modesty and decorum. A legal document agreeing to this modest silence accompanies this letter, and King Spencer I kindly requests that you review it with your legal council and sign it to complete this gift of fidelity between our two families. This agreement also stipulates that the gift is a one-time occurrence, and that the Kingdom of Connecticut retains its sovereignty in all financial matters from this day forward without any implicit guarantees from the Kingdom of California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico, its bank, or other security entities._

_King Spencer I and the Princess Consort also kindly request that any proposed future visits to the Reid Palace be submitted in writing to the Royal Social Secretary at least ninety days prior to arrival for scheduling approval. His Royal Highness has a full schedule and, sadly, not all requests can be accommodated. Advance notice will help avoid any unfortunate refusals._

_The Royal Couple send their fondest wishes for your good health and continued prosperity. May our two houses share a long communion of understanding and cooperation through this blessed marriage._

“Is it okay?” he asked quietly once she’d backed away from his desk.

“It’s fine,” she murmured.

“Are you sure about the last part? About visiting? Should I be more obvious?”

“They’ll understand they’re not welcome from this.” She laid a hand along the edge of the expensive paper, outlining it on his blotter.

“Is that really what you want, Emily?” he asked, still finding it hard to accept her request. Her veils turned to face him.

“Yes. I’m done with this. I need to cut the cord and get on with my life.”

He nodded once, sadly, and collected the letter. “As you wish.” 

It was sent out that day, and Emily officially became Spencer’s possession. The thought unsettled him so much that he refused dinner in the evening and instead locked himself in his apartments to gloomily contemplate the future.

\---- 

Other missives were also sent. An internal memo informed the members of the Imperial Guard that the Princess Consort was permitted to go without a veil within private sections of the palace and within their sight if they were assigned to her. This edict was to remain strictly confidential for security reasons. It was this memo that finally broke the silence between Spencer and Aaron. He stormed into Spencer’s office without an ounce of formality and growled, “I should’ve been informed in advance”. 

Spencer sat blinking behind his desk, heart rammed in his throat, trying to soak in the thunderous expression and the sharp lines of him in his uniform before he was required to pretend again. He missed Aaron like a phantom limb; an invisible part of him ached without relief every moment he was awake. And, though seeing him for the first time in nearly two weeks lit him painfully from within, the joy was quickly soured by the knowledge that the joy was only his. Aaron never loved him like that.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you,” Spencer said too softly, and then covered it up by shuffling his glasses up his nose. There was a pointed silence then, and the sound of Aaron breathing oddly across the desk.

“What else have you two cooked up?” he growled eventually, and Spencer found himself telling Aaron the whole thing. Just like old times.

Aaron sank into a chair on the other side of the desk when Spencer was finished and scrubbed his face.

“Christ…” he grumbled. “Why are your plans always so terribly complicated? The Keep Law? I mean, could you be more Byzantine? Most monarchs would’ve just hired some mercs to go teach an enemy a lesson and call it a day…”

Spencer’s spine straightened. “Violence isn’t the solution here. This will be done _legally_. Otherwise, I’m no…” His voice died in his throat, and Aaron looked at him, piercing and unreadable at the same time.

“You’d be no different from _him_ , you mean. The Irish King,” Aaron finished quietly, his expression smooth as polished stone. “And you want to be different. For _her._ ”

The words were soft, but they stung. It was like a tender condemnation, but Spencer couldn’t grasp why that should be. Why would Aaron be bothered if Spencer wanted to impress his wife? Especially when he and Spencer were _over_ and it had been hopelessly one-sided from the beginning. He wasn’t given long to think about that.

“So, she’s decided to stay indefinitely?” Aaron sighed. “And to be _a thing?_ That’s hard to picture-”

“She’ll never be _a thing_. Never.” Spencer growled and then stood away from his chair as a frightening energy lit him up. Aaron sat back in his own chair, eyes wide and watchful as Spencer glared. He waited for a long, pointed moment.

“Have you declared yourself to her?” he asked gently, and Spencer’s anger drained into shock so suddenly, he felt wobbly.

“What?”

“Spencer, enough of this. Just tell her you love her.”

Spencer swung away towards his office windows to hide himself. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see or think… The whole situation was intolerable. Humiliating.

“She needs to hear-”

“It won’t make a difference,” Spencer whispered. It was so soft, he marvelled that it stopped Aaron in mid-sentence. “You don’t know what she’s been through. None of us do. I mean, we can discover the details, hear her tell the tale, but…”

He closed his eyes and imagined shadows moving across his lids. Dark shadows doing unspeakable things to hurt each other…

“She needs me. It’s not the same thing as love.” He choked as he continued, thinking that his tutor had been right years ago: everyone needed something, and no one wondered what he needed in return. “She was willing to give up the last inch of herself for freedom, but I won’t ask that of her. How could she love me when I hold her fate in my hands? It’s a transaction. Everything about me is a transaction…”

“That’s… Spencer, that’s not true.” Aaron sounded shocked behind him, like someone had snuck up and gut-punched him. Spencer turned back and saw his expression matched his voice.

“Isn’t it?” he asked as if his insides were glass. Smooth, pristine, but a breath away from shattering. “The most meaningful relationship of my adult life was a _convenient_ way to pass the time.”

Spencer waited and watched as the sentence hit Aaron. The corner of his left eye twitched once, but that was it, and Spencer’s chest collapsed inwardly forcing him to swallow the pain down and not make a sound.

“Kings shouldn’t expect love,” he said once he’d rallied himself again. “And they shouldn’t use it to barter if they want people to deal with them in good faith. I’ve finally learned that lesson.”

Something happened then that Spencer didn’t count on: Aaron ducked his face until his hand covered his eyes, and he leaned hard into it, shuddering obviously as he sat in his chair. Spencer was frozen. It was a break in Aaron’s legendary façade that cut his strings utterly. But it didn’t make sense; it was as if his best friend were two separate, warring people. He breathed oddly and swallowed hard several times as he watched Aaron shake silently. 

“I’m sorry.” It slipped out almost too quiet to hear.

“What?” Spencer blinked.

“I’m sorry. For what I said the last time we spoke. It wasn’t…” Aaron stopped and began rubbing his forehead roughly. “I was deliberately unkind, and I regret it. Though I stand behind the essence of my argument that day: the Princess cares for you and you should tell her how you feel.”

He looked at Spencer finally, and there was a weariness in his face that Spencer had never seen before, no matter how stressed he’d been in the past. “You _can _have love, Spencer, if you’re willing to fight for it. If you tell her-”__

__Spencer shook away the softness melting at his center and cut Aaron off before he could say anything more._ _

__“Will you help us, Aaron? With the Keep Law. The Royal Legal Council is currently wading into it, but I’d feel much more secure if you applied yourself to it as well. It isn’t your job – I understand that – but I trust your expert mind, your balanced judgment. We _need_ you. Our position needs to be bulletproof on this one. It’s not just the Irish King we need to worry about – it’s the Embargo Secretary, the unveiling laws… it’s the whole damned process we have to fight.”_ _

__Aaron cleared his throat awkwardly and got to his feet. When he straightened his uniform and met Spencer’s gaze again, he was a stone once more._ _

__“Of course, I will,” he murmured. “But I want something in return.”_ _

__Spencer felt himself stiffen. See? Everyone wanted something from him._ _

__“What is it?”_ _

__“I want to return to your personal guard,” Aaron said, stare distant and flat like the horizon. “We will need to work together on this. All of us, face to face. These discussions should not happen over a network that could be compromised. And there are security issues we’ll have to address, in case the Irish King doesn’t feel the same way about illegalities as you do.”_ _

__Spencer felt dizzy from the request._ _

__“Why…” he breathed, and then quickly covered it with, “Are you negotiating with your King?”_ _

__“You bet I am.” Aaron said it softly, like something intimate, but his bearing was all professional stiffness. “We all need something from each other. This is what I need. Will you let me have it, my lord?”_ _

__Using formality was always Aaron’s go-to for a low blow. Spencer frowned at him._ _

__“Fine. You may return to my personal guard rotation. We’ll review it once this crisis has passed.”_ _

__“As you wish, my lord. Thank you.” Aaron bowed, all politeness and formality, as if he were asking for more vacation time. Spencer gritted his teeth; as if any of this was what _he_ wished._ _

__“Now, how soon can we meet with the Princess?” Aaron was suddenly alive with purpose, his strange confusion evaporating immediately. Spencer had a moment of hateful envy that Aaron could throw off personal issues so quickly. Aaron didn’t notice it at all. “I want everything nailed down before this shitstorm hits the fan…”_ _


End file.
